
Class 
Book 
Copyright N!*. 



i/llj<L^ 




CQfVRIGMT DEPOSIT. 



PREPAREDNESS 

THE AMERICAN Versus THE MILITARY PROGRAMME 



PREPAREDNESS 



THE AMERICAN Versus THE 
MILITARY PROGRAMME 



BY 
WILLIAM L HULL, Ph.D. 

Professor of History and International Relations in 
Swarthmore College. 



AUTHOR OF 



"The Two Hague Conferences and their Contributions 
to International Law," "The New Peace Move- 
ment," "The Monroe Doctrine: National or 
International ? ' ' 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 






Copyright, 1916, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



JUL 15 1916 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 N. Wabash Ave. 
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 



©CI.A433731 



PREFACE 

THIS book has been written by one who is neither 
a military nor a naval expert. It has taken, 
therefore, the standards of adequacy and effi- 
ciency as laid down by the military and naval experts 
themselves, and has used them as a measurement of the 
adequacy and efficiency of the programmes for prepared- 
ness which are now being spread before the American 
people. 

The innumerable facts and figures upon which it is 
based have been taken, in so far as is possible, from the 
official documents. 

The book is by no means purely or chiefly negative. 
It seeks not only to show the utter inadequacy of the 
programmes for military preparedness, and the evils of 
a genuinely adequate military programme ; but also to 
state concisely the parts of the American programme for 
preparedness, their support by reason and experience, 
and the inevitable and insuperable obstacle which each 
and all of them find in the military programme. 

It endeavors to give full credit to the genuine and 
laudable desire of most of the military prepareders " to 
defend this country " ; but it attempts to determine pre- 
cisely what a " defensive war," against a first-rate power, 
in Twentieth Century warfare, would mean, and pre- 
cisely what kind of a military programme would be 
truly adequate for it. Finally, it endeavors to prove 
to the countless Americans who loathe the thought of 
militarism, but who see no other adequate means of de- 
fense, that there is another means which is as definite, 
as practicable, as adequate and as American, as it is jus- 
tified by reason and tried and proven by experience. 

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE. W I H 

5 



CONTENTS 



I The Campaign for Preparedness . . ii 

Its Origin and Growth — Denunciation and Ridi- 
cule of the Pacifists — " Frightfulness " — Liter- 
ary and Newspaper Aids — The Organized 
Campaign — The Navy League — The Wom- 
en's Section — The American Legion-^The 
National Security League — Summer Training 
Camps — The Governors' Conference — Massa- 
chusetts in the Lead — The Congressional 
Campaign — The Presidential Contest. 

II Past Attempts at Preparedness . . 36 

The Present Generation's Preparedness— Amer- 
ican, German and British Preparedness — 
America and the Swiss System. 

III Preparedness for What? .... 40 

IV Motives of Preparedness .... 42 

Politics — Profits — Professional and Social Pres- 
tige — To Preserve the Peace — Europe's Ex- 
perience — The Anglo-American Experiment 
— For a Defensive War — The meaning of a 
"Defensive War." 

V Preparedness Programmes .... 72 

The wildly extravagant and indefinite — ^The in- 
adequate. 

VI Preparedness on and under the Land 79 

A. The Regular Army — How large should it 
be? — Where shall it come from? — What 
would it cost? 

B. The Reserves — Our Unpreparedness — How 
many do we need? 

C. The State Militia, or National Guard— Its 
Defects— Proposed Remedies— Shall it be dis- 
carded ? 

7 



CONTENTS 

D. The Continentals — Where will they come 
from ? — Opposition to them — Would they be 
" adequate " ? 

E. The Sources of Supply — The Supineness of 
American Adults — Possible Adult Sources — 
The Schools and Colleges — The Problem of 
Officers. 

F. Guns and Ammunition — Artillery — The Pass- 
ing of the Rifle — The Modern Arsenal — 
Where are our Guns ? — Ammunition — Pro- 
jectiles. 

G. Fortifications — Inland Forts — Moving Forts 
— Coast Fortifications — Island Fortifications 
and Naval Bases — The Problem of Big Guns. 

H. Underground Preparedness — Intrenchmcnts 
— Underground quarters — Mines and Counter- 
Mincs — Our Underground preparedness. 

I. Social and Individual Preparedness — Physi- 
cal Preparedness — Moral Preparedness — Men- 
tal Preparedness — Economic Preparedness — 
Political Preparedness — International Pre- 
paredness. 

J. A Summary of Preparedness on Land. 



VII Preparedness on and under the Sea . 182 

A. Preparedness on the Sea — ^Dreadnoughts 
and Superdreadnoughts — Their Increased Size 
and Cost — How many do we need ? — Armored 
Cruisers — Battle Cruisers — Scout Cruisers — 
Torpedo Boats and Destroyers. 

B. What shall our Programme be? — Great 
Britain's Two-Power Policy — Our Two- 
Ocean Policy — A Navy's Cost and Obsoles- 
cence — The Revolution in Naval Warfare. 

C. Preparedness under the Sea — Submarine 
Boats — Submarine Battleships — How many 
do we need? — Submarine Mines and Torpe- 
does — Anti-Submarine Devices. 

D. Speed — Fuel and Engines. 

E. Armor, Explosives and Projectiles — Their 
endless Competition — Our " absolute Unpre- 
paredness " — The Era of Scientists. 

F. Navy Personnel and Organization — Our 
Shortage of Officers and Men — How can 
they be increased? — The Lack of Training — 
The Naval Reserve— The Naval Militia— The 
Volunteer Naval Reserve — The Professional 
versus the Novice — A Defective Naval Or- 
ganization. 



CONTENTS 9 

G. What is "Adequate" Naval Preparedness? 
— Overwater Craft — Underwater Craft — 
Speed, Guns, Projectiles, Explosives and 
Armor — What Revolution will this War 
create ? 

VIII Preparedness in and from the Air . . . 236 
Captive Balloons — Dirigible Balloons, or Air- 
ships — Defenses against Dirigibles — Aero- 
planes — Aerial Torpedo-Boats — Hydroaero- 
planes — The Obsolescence of Aircraft — Aerial 
Personnel — What is Adequate Aerial Pre- 
paredness? — Our Unpreparedness — Coast De- 
fense — Our Programme for Dirigibles — Sci- 
entific Preparation — Our Needs. 

IX Results of Preparedness .... 254 

X The American Programme .... 257 

A. The Great Experiment of the Constitution. 

B. The Parts of the Programme : i. The 
Limitation of Armaments — America's Experi- 
ence — America's Opportunity — The Obstacle 
of Preparedness. 2. Mediation — Its Success 
— Its Rejection in 1914 — The Obstacle of 
Preparedness. 3. Commissions of Inquiry — 
Their Success — Their Rejection in 1914 — 
The Obstacle of Preparedness. 4. Arbitration 
— Its Success — The International Court — Its 
Rejection in 1914 — The Obstacle of Prepared- 
ness. 5. An " American " Army and Navy. 

XI The Two Divergent Paths . . . 268 
XII The Present Crisis 270 



I 

THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 

ITS ORIGIN AND GROWTH 

ONE of the most striking phenomena in the public 
life of our country to-day is the campaign which 
is well under way for the achievement of " pre- 
paredness " or " adequate armaments." In universality 
and intensity it rivals the campaigns in behalf of Free 
Silver and the extension of Slavery to the Territories. 

It is a campaign in which the elements of hatred, fear, 
humor, legend, fiction, " poetry," politics, profits, " pa- 
triotism," the press, the pulpit, the school-master, the 
employer, the laborer, individual initiative, and organized 
activities are playing a fervent, fervid and at times 
ferocious part. 

The issue is by no means a new one, even in our own 
peaceful Republic; but the European War has cast its 
baleful shadow across the Atlantic, and beneath this 
shadow the " preparedness " campaign in our own coun- 
try has sprung up like a mushroom in the night. 

For more than a dozen years, — ever since our petty 
war with Spain in 1898 was supposed to have made us one 
of the " Great Powers," — a comparatively small coterie 
of military experts have been demanding armaments ade- 
quate to our new role of a world power. During this 
same period, — ever since the world entered at the first 
Hague Conference of 1899 upoi^ its new era of interna- 
tionalism, — a group of men imbued with this Twentieth 
Century spirit have been combatting the demand for 
" adequate armament " as opposed to real and adequate 
justice. 

11 



12 PREPAREDNESS 

DENUNCIATION AND RIDICULE OF THE PACIFISTS 

The latter group of men, who have accepted without 
complaint the name of " pacifists," have recently assumed 
importance as the prime obstacle to " preparedness," and 
upon them have been poured out the vials of wrath and 
hatred of those who advocate that policy. 

The great protagonist of " preparedness " has de- 
nounced the pacifists with characteristic superlativeness. 
From the Golden Gate of Sunset to the piney woods of 
Maine, he has bespattered the Continent, befogged the 
atmosphere, and castigated the pacifists with such names 
as professional pacificists, peace-prattlers, poltroons, men 
with mean souls, undesirable citizens, peace-at-any-price 
men, mollycoddles, college sissies, Chinafiers, Belgium- 
izers, cowards, traitors ! He has declared them to be 
" beyond the pale of real and true Americanism " ; " puer- 
ile, peace-loving mollycoddles who cannot stand before 
the Liberty Bell without a blush of shame " ; " men who 
ought to move to China, — not worth defending, — en- 
dowed with minds that dwell only in the realm of shadow 
and of sham." He has declared that " at best they are 
an unlovely body of men, and taken as a whole are prob- 
ably the most undesirable citizens that this country con- 
tains." He has solemnly warned them that " they must 
be made to understand that they have got to render what- 
ever service the country demands. They must be made 
to submit to training in doing their duty. Then if, in 
the event of war, they prove unfit to fight, at any rate 
they can be made to dig trenches and kitchen sinks, or 
to do whatever else a debauch of indulgence in profes- 
sional pacificism has left them fit to do." 

This is the voice of an ex-President of the American 
Republic ; but the words and spirit are those of a Prus- 
sian War Lord. It is natural, therefore, that he should 
resent any competition in the use of the word fist, mailed 
or otherwise, by the pa.c\fists, and should have insisted 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 13 

on their very name bringing them closer to the class of 
" college sissies " by being changed to pacificists. The 
consistency with which he has put the bellow into bel- 
lumist, also, has stirred up emulation among the like- 
minded, and they have launched countless missiles by 
way of the public press, which bid fair to rival the origi- 
nal Big Stick itself. For example, one of them begins a 
long letter to the New York Tribune with the persua- 
sive words : " I am sick and tired of the fearsome 
tommy-rot that a few sheep-hearted persons are writing 
and talking to prevent preparedness." But ex uno disce 
omnes. 

" FRIGHTFULNESS " 

To this campaign of ridicule and hatred, there has 
been added one of fear. The " f rightfulness " of the 
European War has been brought home in every possible 
way to the imaginations of the American people in order 
to induce them to " prepare." United States attaches, 
newspaper correspondents, and travellers of many kinds, 
coming fresh from the " war zone," have poured count- 
less articles and books upon the American public to 
prove, in the words of one of them, that " for the United 
States, there is one lesson written across Europe in seven 
letters of blood and flame : PREPARE ! " 

Retired officers of the United States army, and engi- 
neers and inventors of various kind and degree, have 
published articles and books which prove to a nicety such 
theses as this, that " one hundred thousand English, Ger- 
mans, or Japanese, equipped with the longest and best 
modern field artillery, with plenty of ammunition and 
supply trains, air-scouts and engineer corps, could, in 
our present defenseless condition, march through this 
country as Xenophon's 10,000 marched through ancient 
Persia." Very definite details are supplied with such 
warnings; for example: "An army of 100,000 men 
could land (if our navy were evaded or destroyed) in 



14 PREPAREDNESS 

Long Island or New Jersey, and go anywhere it might 
see fit, hve off the country, capture our big cities, and 
hold us up for ransom." 

The newly elected president of the Navy League, in 
his inaugural address, declared : " Modem conditions of 
transportation, it is calculated by the best authorities, 
would make it possible for one of these European fight- 
ing organizations to land 300,000 soldiers, fully equipped 
for aggressive warfare, on our shores within fifteen days 
after war had been declared. In three months they could 
have a million fully equipped men here to make a Bel- 
gium of our unprepared country." 

A distinguished inventor of means of preparedness de- 
clares : " An enemy could do and would do to us what 
the Germans did to Belgium, only we would not be able 
to give as good an account of ourselves as the brave Bel- 
gians did. They were better prepared than we are or 
could be on short notice. We would become a nation of 
hoboes at once just as the Belgians have become." 

A congressman from the State of Massachusetts gave 
voice to the prevalent panic when he deplored what 
seemed to him a fact, namely, that our country is " like 
a great fat dowager, covered with jewels, out amongst 
the wicked world, without a single policeman within six 
miles of her." And in putting his speeches on prepared- 
ness through the United States Printing Office, prepara- 
tory to franking them in wholesale throughout the coun- 
try, this congressman appropriately gave as their title, 
" Safety First," and " Where are our Guns? " 

" The preparedness " which was worked up in England 
a few years ago by means of a play, " An Englishman's 
Home," is being advocated in America by means of a 
moving-picture play, entitled " A Battle Cry of Peace." 
All the melodramatic power, mechanical ingenuity and 
scenic splendor, for which the moving-picture show has 
become justly famous, have been placed behind this per- 
nicious drama and have made of it a terrible provocative 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 15 

of fear, and a blind, unreasoning demand for " prepared- 
ness." 

The president of the American Society of Aeronautical 
Engineers is reported to have added to the prevailing 
panic, as follows : " Records in Washington show that a 
certain European nation could land in the United States, 
within forty-eight days, 750,000 men with 250,000 horses 
and munitions sufficient for a three months' campaign, 
with half the transports available before the present 
war. . . . Furthermore, similar records show that a na- 
tion on the Pacific could land 350,000 troops on the Pa- 
cific Coast, within sixty-one days with half its trans- 
ports." 

Another typical " scare " is the following, which comes 
to us from Boston : " The vast lesson that the present 
war teaches us is that the ocean has been annihilated. 
The United States is more alluring as a prize and less 
competent to defend itself than Belgium was. The loot 
Germany can take from us is prodigious. She recognizes 
her moral right to take it, for with her, power determines 
morality. She has not a scrap of any other kind of con- 
science than might-conscience. Let her be victor in this 
war, and what happens? The British, French and Italian 
fleets, partly destroyed and partly captured. Out of the 
wreck, Germany emerges complete mistress of the seas, 
with a fleet several times greater than ours and an army 
of millions of trained, armed men, thirsting for more 
worlds to conquer, in order to repair the German na- 
tion's colossal war losses. To steam across the Atlantic 
and not only smash us, but take and garrison and perma- 
nently own us, will be child's play and warriors' joy for 
her. And she will do it as surely as she conquers the 
Allies. Moreover, the chances are now ten to one that 
she will conquer the Allies, unless the American Republic 
interferes to prevent it. Our policy of neutrality is, 
therefore, a policy of imbecility and death." 

Still another form taken by the prevalent " frightful- 



16 PREPAREDNESS 

ness " comes from a New York novelist and newspaper- 
man, who writes of it as follows : 

" In case of war with Germany, the United States 
would be utterly paralyzed in a week. German secret 
propaganda is spread through our whole system like 
poison, and it would cause trouble in time of war. Tele- 
graph wires would be cut, railroads crippled and bridges 
blown up. I could take you to restaurants throughout 
the country where the German keepers are clipping out 
every anti-German article in the papers and mailing them 
to some headquarters." 

In " The Passport," a book written by this last alarm- 
ist, there is a chapter describing the drilling of German 
troops in America ; and two weeks ago a Washington 
dispatch reported that military drills w^ere going on se- 
cretly in the German turnvereins of America. 

" Furthermore, as a marine writer for newspapers," 
the same author continues, " I have often scrutinized the 
piers of the German lines in Hoboken. The piers are 
ridiculously massive for their purpose ; incidentally, they 
command the city of New York. That there is some 
secret purpose behind many things the Germans do is 
a commonplace after what we have seen in Europe." 

Not only has the frightfulness of the European War 
been utilized to fan the flames of preparedness in our 
country, but almost every attempt to settle international 
disputes by peaceful means has been used as a bellows 
for the same purpose. Raucous voices have been insist- 
ently raised to declare that the attempted mediation in 
Mexican affairs by the A. B. C. powers in South Amer- 
ica, in cooperation with the United States, would in- 
fallibly have succeeded if we had been properly pre- 
pared. Blatant voices have shouted that Germany would 
have yielded at once to our diplomatic representations 
on the Lusitania and Arabic, if we had only possessed an 
" adequate " army and navy. 

Even the movements for constructive peace in the fu- 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 17 

ture have been eagerly utilized by the prepareders to 
prove the necessity of greatly increasing our armaments. 
For example, the League to Enforce Peace, which began 
its career as a genuinely pacific and Twentieth Century 
institution for the settlement of international disputes, 
has been side-tracked and run back into the twilight of 
militarism. The chairman of its executive committee, 
for instance, is convinced that our country, to perform 
its share of work in " enforcing peace," must increase its 
army to 500,000 men ; and the Navy League has joyously 
vyelcomed this so-called Peace League as a prime argu- 
ment for the great and indefinite increase of our navy. 
" If this proposal succeeds," says one of its leading ad- 
vocates, " it will mean a departure from the traditional 
policy of the United States in the avoiding of entangling 
foreign alliances and will commit us to a new policy and 
a new relation with the world, which will increase enor- 
mously both our obligations and our need of strength on 
the seas." 

LITERARY AND NEWSPAPER AIDS 

Fiction, legend, " poetry," oratory, have all been sum- 
moned to arouse us to a realizing sense of our unprepar- 
edness. " War novels," revealing and solving the problem 
of unpreparedness, are climbing into the class of the 
" six best sellers." Magazine story-tellers are supplying 
thrills by narrating the " Capture of New York " and 
the " Conquest of America " by the allied powers vic- 
torious in the European War. All the patriotic hymns, 
from " Yankee Doodle " to " The Star-Spangled Ban- 
ner," are being utilized and parodied for the purpose of 
prodding the prostrate public into proper preparedness. 
" Be a Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, not a Chuchundra," is the key- 
note of countless articles in one grave journal of pessi- 
mistic outlook ; " Don't fight wildcats with soft, soapy 
words," is the key-note of editorials in other journals 
which trail their funereal length across the Continent. 



18 PREPAREDNESS 

The preparedness campaign has been a bonanza for 
newspaper humorists, as well. The columns devoted to 
" Spicy Sayings " or " Sparkling Sallies " are replete 
with scintillations of wit at the expense of America as 
" a nation of mollycoddles and poltroons, with a wish- 
bone but no back-bone, confronting its foes in the Bat- 
tleship Piffle." Cartloads of cartoons, conceived with all 
the cleverness for which American cartoonists are fa- 
mous, have been dumped into the mill-race of the daily 
and weekly papers with the hope that they may strike 
home through the American love of humor to American 
" patriotism." The " peace-palaverer " is usually the 
butt of these cartoons ; but Belgium's fate is a close rival 
in their devoted attentions. 

Every patriotic celebration has been made the occa- 
sion for perfervid orations in advocacy of preparedness ; 
as, for example, Decoration Day, the Fourth of July, the 
erection of memorials to the " Mexican Martyrs " of 
1914. 

Countless interviews are published, also, in which 
" prominent officials," or " highly intelligent citizens " of 
the great cities, are given an opportunity to purvey such 
advice as the following bit from one, " the father of sons 
available for military service." " Take Mexico and keep 
it," is the advice of this metropolitan Napoleon of finance ; 
for, he continues, " this task would expose our unpre- 
paredness for a conflict with a great power, and it would 
be a great boon to us by creating a well-equipped army 
of 300,000 veteran soldiers who would become the 
nucleus of future millions, and thus result in organizing 
in the United States a military system which would be a 
framework of a real nation." 

THE ORGANIZED CAMPAIGN 

All this sporadic propaganda is not permitted to go to 
waste or expend itself in mere " hot air." For the express 
purpose of systematizing it, organizing it, and bringing it 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 19 

to bear in places where it will produce results, at least 
three national societies have been organized. Other pa- 
triotic organizations of the various sons and daughters 
are by no means debarred from increasing the crop and 
participating in the harvest of preparedness, and they are 
eagerly availing themselves of the opportunity. For ex- 
ample, at a national conference on preparedness, held in 
Washington in October, 191 5, there were represented the 
Grand Army of the Republic, the Army and Navy Union, 
the Union Veteran Legion, the United Spanish War 
Veterans, the Sons of Veterans, the National Rifle Asso- 
ciation, the Southern Commercial Congress, the National 
Defense League, the Navy League, and various others. 
But the three societies referred to have no other raison 
d'etre than to reveal our unpreparedness and achieve our 
entire preparedness. The Navy League, the American 
Legion, and the National Security League are the so- 
cieties referred to. 

The Navy League 

The Navy League, emulating its prototype in Germany, 
devotes itself to anything and everything which promises 
to increase the welfare of our navy. Assuming the major 
premise that the navy's size is equivalent to its welfare, 
and the minor premise that the navy's welfare is identical 
with the country's welfare, it draws the conclusion that 
whatever increases the money spent upon and the atten- 
tion paid to the navy is patriotic, and therefore deserving 
of the League's financial, social and political support. It 
has not become so much of a factor in American politics 
and life as is its prototype in Prussia's more congenial 
clime; but patience, efifort and the present unparalleled 
demand for preparedness will yet work wonders for the 
League, and it is certainly not neglecting to exert its 
powers along these lines. 

It has organized in States, Departments and Nation, 
with field secretaries in each to further its objects in 



20 PREPAREDNESS 

every community, and with a special director of its work 
in Washington, charged with the specific duty of keeping 
an eye on Congress and commending or condemning its 
action in regard to the Navy. It employs lecturers to 
describe our unpreparedness and to build up the member- 
ship and work of the League; and it is noteworthy that 
these lectures are given preferably at " parlor meetings " 
of the " elite " society in Washington, New York, Phila- 
delphia and the large cities in which the real " Four 
Hundred " are to be found. Moving-picture lectures, 
also, on " Our Navy and What it Means," etc., are re- 
sorted to ; and the visit of a fleet of war-ships to cities or 
towns is utilized for the holding of " Monster Mass 
Meetings," addressed by the foremost exponents of the 
Big Stick, and for other means of " whooping it up " for 
the Navy. 

Its principal headquarters are in New York City, the 
center of the country's wealth and commerce, and it was 
an appropriate key-note which was struck by the new 
president of the League in his recent inaugural address. 
At the end of the present war, he is reported to have 
said, this country is going to have practically the entire 
stock of gold in the world and an enormously increased 
commerce; history has proven that treaties and moral 
obligations are nothing to nations that covet; hence we 
should have an army of 1,000,000 soldiers, preferably 
boys between eighteen and twenty-one years of age ; and 
we should build up a vast navy at once and pay for it 
by annual instalments! This worthy man finds in the 
war experience of Belgium, Great Britain and Russia a 
justification of his demands ; but apparently he has found 
in the war no reason for thinking that a vast navy built 
up at once might become obsolescent at once and entirely 
obsolete soon ; nor has he found in American history 
or ideals anything that would deprecate the building up 
of an army of one million men, — or boys. 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS ^1 

The Women's Section of the Navy League 

A Women's Section of the Navy League was formed 
on the Fourth of July, 1915, and within two months it 
boasted of having secured 15,000 members, which is 4,000 
more than the male membership of the League. This 
result was achieved by a thorough organization. Twenty- 
five women were selected in each State and invited to be- 
come members of a National Committee and to aid in 
organizing State committees and branches of the League 
in each community. One professed object of these 
branches and committees, as of the corresponding ones 
among the men, is to " build up public sentiment which 
shall influence the Members of Congress to vote for a 
strong navy as a means of guaranteeing that, no matter 
what international storms of war may rage abroad, no 
foreign invading force may ever carry the horrors of war 
over the borders of this country." 

With characteristic feminine enthusiasm, the Women's 
Section of the League has planned a country-wide, as 
well as State and local, movement to influence Congress, 
and to create public sentiment and support by means of 
" great patriotic pageants " and similar devices. Before 
Congress assembles in December, 191 5, the Women's 
Section expects to secure 100,000 members. In pursuit 
of this object, it is making appeals to women to become 
members like that of the Registrar of the Daughters of 
the American Revolution, who argues : " It is time that 
the women of this country freed themselves of the stigma 
of standing for peace at any price, lack of preparedness, 
and national cowardice, which has been attached to them 
because certain women have been misled by grape-juice, 
anti- American peace propagandists into throwing in their 
own lot with them." 

A pledge, called the " Women's Patriotic Pledge," is 
taken by new members, which does not bind them to 
avoid the use of grape- juice, or to partake of any stronger 



2S PREPAREDNESS 

beverage, but which reads as follows : " I pledge my- 
self to think, talk and work for patriotism, Americanism, 
and sufficient national defenses to keep the horrors of 
war far from America's homes and shores forever. In 
these days of world strife and peril, I will strive to do 
my share to awaken our nation and our law-makers to 
the dangers of our present undefended condition so that 
we may continue to dwell in peace and prosperity and 
not have to mourn States desolated by war within our 
own borders. In so far as I am able, I will make my 
home a center of American ideals and patriotism and 
endeavor to teach the children in my care to cherish and 
revere our country and its history and to uphold its 
honor and fair repute in their generation." 

All this fervid activity on the part of the Women's 
Section of the Navy League is defended by the women 
themselves on the ground that " American women should 
be in the forefront of the new movement toward nation- 
alism and national defense; for they have most to gain 
by the establishment of a navy which shall be able to 
keep war forever far from our shores." 

Before Congress meets, also, about the middle of No- 
vember, the Women's Section is planning to hold a con- 
ference on national defense, " the first of its kind ever 
held." The Memorial Continental Hall, headquarters of 
the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washing- 
ton, is to be placed at the disposal of the conference, and 
the national committee appointed to take charge of the 
conference is composed of " the leading social lights " in 
the large cities. One of these writes, in accepting her 
appointment : 

" I do not need a new pledge, as I have been preach- 
ing against our foolish unpreparedness for many years. 
I am glad that women are at last awake to its menace 
and hope they will now help to undo the great harm they 
have caused by their short-sighted peace propaganda in 
the past." 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 23 

In further illustration of the way in which some 
women, at least, have awakened to their responsibility 
for preparedness, may be mentioned an organization 
recently formed in Washington under the name of " The 
Sponsors of the Navy." The membership, which now 
numbers more than one hundred;, includes only " the 
maids and matrons who have had the honor of christening 
a warship." As emphasizing the exclusive character of 
this society, it has published an edition de luxe of a book 
entitled " Ships of the United States Navy and Their 
Sponsors." This is illustrated by " fifty handsome half- 
tone pictures of christening parties," etc. ; it is limited to 
500 copies, and is sold to members and " a limited num- 
ber of subscribers outside of the membership " for five 
dollars a copy. 

The American Legion 

The American Legion is the second of the prominent 
societies formed for emphasizing and eliminating our un- 
preparedness. It has arisen to meet the demand that 
all America's men and resources available for " prepared- 
ness " shall be inventoried, classified and kept on tap in 
case of " need." Ex-soldiers, ex-athletes, men skilled in 
every science or art that could conceivably be utilized 
for military purposes, are being catalogued by the Legion 
in its self-imposed task of annual and perennial census- 
taking. The list of trades or professions whose mem- 
bers could be of service in aiding its campaign for pre- 
paredness is a long and elaborate one, including at present 
more than seventy ; and it aspires to include " the entire 
reserve force of the nation." It claims to have enrolled 
more than 50,000 men within the first six months of its 
existence. So rapid was its growth and so conspicuous 
was its campaign that it bade fair to take the place that 
the Order of the Cincinnati held at its inception in pub- 
lic fear and suspicion. But these fears were modified 
when it was explained that the Legion was not designed 



M PREPAREDNESS 

to organize or assemble a body of men uniformed, armed 
and equipped for military service ; but only to procure a 
list of men available in war-time. 

The very rapid increase of the American Legion, and 
its large public prominence, is a striking illustration of 
the influence of the war in Europe on the minds of the 
American people, and of the way in which public senti- 
ment is being exploited. The inception of the Legion 
was in a few back pages of a fifteen-cent magazine.^ At- 
tracting the attention of Major-General Leonard Wood, 
he saw in it a possibility of furthering his military aspira- 
tions for the United States, and he gave it his powerful 
support. The next step was to secure the cooperation of 
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who was evidently not ob- 
livious to the possible political importance of the Legion, 
and accepted the chairmanship of its executive commit- 
tee. By means of the clarion calls sent forth by this last- 
named official, and the enthusiastic aid afforded by Gen- 
eral Wood and his aide-de-camp, the Legion is growing 
apace and aspires to reach soon its 300,000 membership 
mark. 

Aside from the rapid growth and quasi-official relations 
of the Legion, thoughtful critics have deprecated the 
oath or pledge which its new members are invited to 
take, namely, " to serve my country, and to serve her 
as she says, not as I say." Again, although the scientific, 
and not the military, aspects of the Legion have been 
consistently advertised, one of its purposes is to enroll, 
in a special branch or department, men who have had 
training and service in the regular army or navy. This 
branch is designed to supply the country with " the first 
reserve, which, in the event of war, could be quickly 
assembled and put in readiness to follow to the front the 
first line, consisting of the regular army and the mili- 
tia." 

The novel and distinctive characteristic of the Ameri- 

* The " Camp Fire " department of Adventure. 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 25 

can Legion, however, seems to be the mobilization of 
brains and skilled workmen, ranging from wizards of 
electricity and finance to cowboys. 

Closely allied in spirit with the formation of the 
" scientific branch " of the American Legion is the action 
taken by various associations of civil, mechanical, elec- 
trical, mining and consulting engineers, bridge-builders, 
electricians, telegraphers and other trained experts in 
civil life, who have offered to cooperate with the Army 
War College in Washington by forming reserve corps 
to be available in case of war. Plans are now being 
worked out by means of which the Government may be 
able to avail itself of this offer. 

The National Security League 

The Navy League and American Legion, prominent 
though they have suddenly become, have temporarily 
been eclipsed by a third society, the National Security 
League by name, which has attained such prominence 
and engaged in such feverish activities as to earn the 
sobriquet of the National Hysteria League. 

This organization makes its appeal especially to busi- 
ness men and men of wealth, with a predilection, like 
that of the Navy League, to secure the support of the 
" exclusive social set." It presses upon these classes such 
questions as : " Will you consider for a moment the 
effect upon your business of the sudden appearance of 
a large hostile force off our coast or on our border? Do 
you know that in the present condition of our defenses 
we would, in such an event, be practically helpless ? " 
Interpreting our " unpreparedness " as evidence of a 
lack of patriotism and a subsidence of nationalism, the 
League has taken these two praiseworthy sentiments 
under its special guardianship. 

Organized in December, 1914, the League recruited 
within six months more than three thousand, and within 
eight months more than twelve thousand, members, 



26 PREPAREDNESS 

comprising " the influential citizens, the best men," in 
the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh 
and Chicago. Each new member promises to recruit at 
least five others, and thus an " endless chain," or a " five 
times one " device, has been started for it. National and 
State field agents are working for members among such 
fields as the delegates to the National Manufacturers' 
Association's annual meeting, held during the summer in 
Atlantic City. Two hundred cities are being organized 
into branches of the League, and it is planned to have a 
separate headquarters or clubhouse in each city. Col- 
lege graduates are especially welcome; and the promis- 
ing field of college undergraduates has been entered upon 
by the establishment of a branch of the League at Har- 
vard. It has held " unpreparedness exhibits " on the 
leading thoroughfares of the large cities, during two 
months before the meeting of Congress. 

The League held a national conference and " monster 
mass meeting " in New York City, in June, 191 5, and one 
feature of the occasion was an elaborate " exhibit " of 
the machinery of war, from small arms to a Whitehead 
torpedo, twenty feet in length. Its " publicity campaign " 
has been tmly remarkable. The " front pages " of the 
metropolitan dailies, the Sunday Pictorial Supplements 
and editorial columns, have been most generous in their 
attention to the League's activities, and especially to its 
cooperation with the Summer Training Camps inaugu- 
rated by the United States Army. 

Summer Training Camps 

Four of these camps have been held this Summer, at 
San Francisco, Chickamauga, Ludington, Michigan, and 
Plattsburg, New York. It is with the last of these that 
the League has been especially identified. General Leon- 
ard Wood, the head of the camp movement, was espe- 
cially helpful to the League in its work of inception and 
organization. He made speeches at luncheons and else- 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 27 

where, tinder its auspices; and the League has recipro- 
cated vaHantly in aiding his camp movement. It was 
chiefly instrumental in recruiting and sending to Platts- 
burg fourteen hundred business and professional men 
from New York City, Philadelphia and elsewhere. These 
included the mayor of the metropolis, an ex-Secretary 
of State and ambassador, prominent newspaper corre- 
spondents, college athletes, the most gilded of society's 
jeunesse doree, etc. It is small wonder, then, that the 
newspapers should have found in such incipient war- 
riors, especially in these warlike days, fair game with 
which to supply the jaded appetites of their readers. 
Hence, the papers have been filled during the month of 
the camp's duration with an exhaustive account of the 
camp's daily activities from taps to reveille, copiously 
illustrated by pictures of the eating, bathing, fighting, 
etc., of the future heroes and present celebrities. As 
indicative of the type of soldiers illustrated by the Platts- 
burg campers and of the kind of interest excited by 
and in them, the following excerpt from a newspaper ac- 
count is a fair sample of countless others. " The regi- 
ment was followed throughout the day," says this ac- 
count of the sham battle in which the march occurred, 
" by a long line of automobiles, and to-night in the bitter 
cold [on the 27th of August'] the citizen-soldiers are 
gathered about huge camp-fires with many of their 
women friends." They have been associated, also, with 
six hundred regulars of the United States Army, and 
General Wood has been the presiding genius of the 
camp. In addition to the instruction given to this novel 
kind of " rookies " by regular instructors connected with 
the camp, they have listened to fervent exhortations from 
orators prominent elsewhere. One of these orators, 
doubtless " intoxicated by the exuberance of his own 
verbosity," went so far as to denounce before the camp 
and in General Wood's presence the national adminis- 
tration for its neglect to provide the country with ade- 



28 PREPAREDNESS 

quate armaments, and for its supine policy in dealing 
with Germany. This insubordination bordering closely 
on treason, at the critical time at which it occurred, 
called forth a rebuke to the head of the camp from the 
Secretary of War, and for a time word went forth that 
it would be well for the newspapers and all others con- 
cerned to moderate their transports, lest the camp should 
be in need of rescue from its friends. 

But in the main, the experiment was pronounced so 
brilliant a success, that a second camp at Plattsburg was 
held in September. The National Security League re- 
cruited for this camp " almost as many prominent men 
as it had sent to the first " ; and, to prevent hard feeling 
between the country and the town, or to spread the 
gospel of preparedness as widely as possible, many of 
these prominent men were recruited from the rural dis- 
tricts. 

One month's training, of course, is scarcely sufficient 
to develop an efficient officer for a real army; and, al- 
though General Wood plans to institute a " correspond- 
ence course " for the graduates of the Plattsburg Camp 
to take during the winter, the prime object and the ulti- 
mate result of the camp is to be, not so much instruction, 
as inspiration. The graduates of the camp are expected 
to become eager and effective supporters of the National 
Security League and its work. They are to talk and 
write about the camps which, it is hoped, will be opened 
throughout the United States next summer; and, in par- 
ticular, they are to mould public sentiment and bring 
pressure to bear upon congressmen to provide for " ade- 
quate preparedness." They are to support the definition 
of " adequate preparedness " which is provided by the 
General Staff of the Army and the General Board of 
the Navy, and are to frown upon any mere civilian en- 
deavor to decide upon so ** technical " a question. As 
business men, they are to insist upon business methods 
in making and using congressional appropriations for 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 29 

military purposes. And as men endowed with the wis- 
dom of this world, they are to deprecate the member- 
ship, or at least the prominence, in the National Security 
League of men who are actively or obviously engaged in 
the manufacture of military supplies. 

The Governors' Conference 

Since the right and duty of determining the size and 
character of the armed forces of the country are pos- 
sessed, in our democratic Republic, by the people and 
their representatives in Congress, the ultimate aim of 
the campaign of preparedness in all its phases is to or- 
ganize and concentrate " political pressure." Hence, the 
gubernatorial, congressional and presidential poUtical 
cauldrons are already seething and bubbling from the 
fuel of preparedness. 

At the eighth annual conference of the Governors of 
the States, held in Boston, in August, 191 5, the ques- 
tion of preparedness was kept well to the fore. On the 
arrival of the governors in the city, each was met by an 
officer of the Massachusetts militia, who acted as his aide 
throughout the conference. This was done avowedly 
to " give the clue to the arriving guests that the para- 
mount issue for them to develop in conference is that of 
preparedness." The entire Massachusetts militia, 6,000 
strong, encamped during the conference on Bos- 
ton Common, in front of the State House, in which the 
conference was held. The Secretaries of War and the 
Navy were invited to address the conference, and the 
Secretary of the Navy, requested to send a battleship 
to the harbor, responded by sending all the available 
ships of the Atlantic fleet. On the first day of the con- 
ference, the fleet manoeuvred in battle drill; on the sec- 
ond day, a parade of the militia, including machine-gun 
companies, field artillery, naval brigade, signal and hos- 
pital corps, and " a long baggage train," was reviewed 
by all the celebrities of the State and city, and automo- 



30 PREPAREDNESS 

biles were supplied to the governors for their participa- 
tion in it. After such skilful " whooping it up " for pre- 
paredness, the stage was set for the discussion of the 
question on the third day of the conference. The public 
came in such numbers that the discussion was adjourned 
from the Senate Chamber to the Hall of the House of 
Representatives, and here the governors of sundry States 
made a successful appeal " to the galleries." For ex- 
ample, the Governor of Illinois declared that every col- 
lege and university receiving State or Federal funds 
should give four years of military training to all their 
students. The Governor of Massachusetts went on rec- 
ord in support of the appropriation of State or Federal 
funds for military training in all the public schools. The 
Governor of New Jersey, as coming from the State of 
the President and the Secretary of War, and as their 
personal and political friend, was expected to " put the 
administration on record." His speech was a distinct 
disappointment, however, to the enthusiasts for prepared- 
ness. He contented himself, for example, with advocat- 
ing the addition of only 25,000 troops to the regular 
army, " whereas," writes a well-informed newspaper cor- 
respondent, " the New England public, regardless of 
party affiliations, has begun to think in terms of a regular 
establishment of at least 200,000 men, and of a system 
of military training the country over which, with an in- 
creased State and newly created militia, will give the 
nation a body of citizen soldiery 1,000,000 strong, upon 
which the country can rely at all times." 

The discussion was followed by the adoption of no 
resolutions in favor of preparedness, and the conference 
turned quickly away from a subject which evidently con- 
tained political elements of dangerous possibilities, and 
took up that of " the conservation of mankind and nat- 
ural resources." The New England disappointment in 
this lame and impotent conclusion, was expressed in a 
leading newspaper's comment that " war is hell, but more 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 31 

than hell is necessary to convince [peace] fools of their 
folly." 

The advocates of preparedness are hopeful, neverthe- 
less, that the governors were sufficiently impressed to 
lead their people, on returning to their homes, in a de- 
mand that their congressmen shall support a programme 
of preparedness. Nor were the New Englanders' efforts 
to impress the governors wasted within their own hori- 
zon. Under the stimulus of these efforts, and of Colonel 
Roosevelt's Plattsburg speech, which occurred at the 
same time, some Harvard graduates set on foot a move- 
ment to have their alma mater add to her curriculum " a 
course in the principles of military command," which 
shall be made as attractive to as many students as possi- 
ble by counting towards the bachelor's degree. It ap- 
pears to be confidently expected that this movement will 
succeed, and that Yale and the other New England col- 
leges will follow the example. 

Massachusetts in the Lead 

The State of Massachusetts, too, under the double 
stimulus of the Governors' Conference and the return 
of the New England contingent of " rookies " from the 
Plattsburg Camp, is vastly enthusiastic over plans and 
hopes of " preparedness." A well-informed journalist 
of the Old Bay State writes of these as follows : " The 
Old Bay State is about to set an example to the nation 
that, it is expected, will be imitated, first, by the sister 
States of the New England group, and later by the other 
States of the Union. Massachusetts, without waiting 
for the Federal Government to act, is tackling the prob- 
lem of national defense on its own account. The last 
Legislature authorized the creation of a " commission 
on military education and reserve," the first of the kind 
ever established in the United States. That commission 
has been organized with an aggressive Boston lawyer, 
former militiaman and Plattsburg " rookie," as chair- 



S2 PREPAREDNESS 

man, and a distinguished membership that includes the 
names of two college presidents, a prominent labor leader, 
two major generals and one brigadier general, and a 
widely known editor. It has decided to hold a series of 
weekly hearings, at which opportunity will be afforded 
for a period of six weeks for every person or organiza- 
tion in New England that is interested in the subject of 
preparedness to be heard. It is expected that this ques- 
tion, that has become acute since the Lusitania incident, 
will be given an airing that will attract the attention of 
the country. It will come at an opportune time, on the 
eve of the assembling of Congress, so that it is probable 
that the discussion here will prove of influence later on 
in Washington. The appearance here at the first hear- 
ing of Major-General Leonard Wood and President 
Lowell, of Harvard, will give the hearings a good start. 
Both have been invited to attend. Nobody in Massa- 
chusetts doubts that the commission will be able to sub- 
mit to the next Legislature a comprehensive plan for 
strengthening the defense of the State. The sentiment 
here is strong and it is believed that a reasonable pro- 
gram will be indorsed by the legislative branch of the 
Government. Like the East in general. New England is 
enthusiastic for legislation providing for a greater de- 
gree of preparedness. None of the apathy on the sub- 
ject that prevails in the West and Middle West is to be 
found here. Still, there are peace propagandists and 
professional pacificists, who undoubtedly will be bitterly 
opposed to the State " going in " for military prepara- 
tions on a larger scale than now exists in the militia. 
There will be no attempt to stifle their voices, but there 
probably will be efforts to effect with this element a rea- 
sonable compromise. The report to be compiled by the 
commission will embrace some eight subdivisions of in- 
quiry, but they fall generally under two heads : one re- 
lating to the armed military forces of the State, and the 
other to military training in the public schools. Except 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 33 

in Boston and a few other cities there are no high school 
cadets in Massachusetts, and inquiry leads to the con- 
clusion that the extension of this system likely will 
meet with opposition, A compromise may be reached on 
a basis of involuntary physical training of all male stu- 
dents, but without military drills with guns. Great em- 
phasis will be laid upon the physical benefits to be de- 
rived from such courses of exercises. This is one of 
the lessons that New England's volunteers have brought 
back from the Plattsburg camp. While no definite pro- 
gram has been adopted by the commission, its report 
probably will represent public opinion, which is slowly 
crystallizing in favor of Federal rather than State mili- 
tary forces. There will be no opposition to this from 
the States' rights philosophers, but it seems to those 
who have gone thoroughly into the subject that the ob- 
vious scheme would be the adoption by the Federal 
Government of a general plan of national defense which 
the States as individual units could adopt, thus produc- 
ing uniformity and cohesion. Very likely Massachu- 
setts will lead the way toward this end. Another ques- 
tion that the commission will study will be that of the 
adaptation of the Swiss system to Massachusetts. There 
also probably will be a recommendation for the estab- 
lishment by the State of a permanent camp of instruc- 
tion similar to that at Plattsburg for the military train- 
ing of the young men of the Commonwealth. 

The Congressional Campaign 

The congressional campaign for preparedness, apart 
from its gubernatorial phase, is well under way. When 
the crisis in the diplomatic relations between the United 
States and Germany was acute because of the sinking 
of the Lusitania and Arabic, it was confidently hoped 
by the prepareders that Congress would be called in 
extra session, at least for increasing the army and navy. 
Under the shadow of an impending war, the policy of 



34 PREPAREDNESS 

preparedness would doubtless have received an enor- 
mous stimulus in such a session of Congress ; but, for- 
tunately, for many reasons, the President has not con- 
sidered it necessary or desirable to summon an extra 
session. The regular session of Congress, however, is 
rapidly approaching, and the preparedness campaign has 
fully prepared for it. Among many features of its ac- 
tivity may be mentioned, by way of illustration, the ques- 
tionnaire sent out by the National Security League to 
each congressman, demanding to know his attitude 
towards " the prime issue of the day, preparedness." 
The replies have come in so promisefully that the League 
has expressed itself as very well satisfied with the con- 
gressmen in most sections of the country, especially in 
New England and on the Pacific Coast ; but it sounds 
the warning that there are still " backward parts " of the 
country, and promises to devote to them its very par- 
ticular attention. 

It has organized State Delegations for National De- 
fense, which have showered the President and Cabinet 
with demands for preparedness ; it is holding mass meet- 
ings throughout the country to procure signatures to 
preparedness petitions, which it hopes to have signed 
by 15,000,000 voters; it has named December 6 as " Na- 
tional Defense Day " ; and it has sent its officials to 
Washington to be ready to " receive " the returning con- 
gressmen, and to secure material for starting " back 
fires " in the home districts of Senators and Representa- 
tives who venture to oppose the programme. 

Meanwhile, political pulse-feelers and aspirants to the 
leadership of congressional majorities and minorities, 
like the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, are giving 
out frequent interviews and addresses, solicited or other- 
wise, in which the people are informed that their inter- 
national affairs have been and will continue to be in a 
very grave and dangerous crisis, and that their country 
is " potentially the strongest and practically the weakest 



THE CAMPAIGN FOR PREPAREDNESS 35 

of nations." Therefore, they wail, Prepare, prepare, 
and let us prepare for you. 

The Presidential Contest 

In the presidential contest of 1916, also, which is al- 
ready well under way, the Outs are preparing to smoke 
out the Ins by the smoke of the campaign of prepared- 
ness. At the Governors' Conference in Boston, a rep- 
resentative of the Outs from the Middle West declared 
that while the Democrats will wage the fight on a can- 
didate, their present leader, the Republicans will go be- 
fore the country on a creed, and that the prime article 
in this creed will be : " Protection everywhere honestly 
applied, which will restore our prestige abroad, revive 
our prosperity at home, and put the nation in a position 
to defend its honor and its rights on land and sea against 
all comers." 

The ex-presidential advocate of " the third-cup-of- 
cofTee " policy has lost no opportunity to convince the 
voters that the country should rid itself of " milk-and- 
water statesmen," and should place itself under the pro- 
tection of " statesmen of blood and iron." On the other 
hand, the possibility that the political enemy might reap 
all the advantage that may accrue to the advocacy of 
preparedness has led sundry lesser leaders of the Demo- 
crats to engage in verbal fireworks with the redoubtable 
Colonel, in order to assure the country that their party 
also is eager to prepare. The non-partisan observer of 
the wave of military " tommy-rot " which is sweeping 
over the country, listening to the noise of this quarrel 
between the politicians, has been hopeful that it be- 
tokened a rift in the lute of preparedness, and that its 
discord would soon fade into the realm of oblivion where 
such wailing discords properly belong. But it is only 
too probable that the rival parties will continue to emu- 
late each other in the howl for preparedness, until the 
country is hounded into a panic and flees to prepared- 
ness in earnest. 



II 

PAST ATTEMPTS AT PREPAREDNESS 

SUCH are some of the phases of the campaign for 
preparedness which has our country in its throes 
at present. In view of the alarm which is being 
sounded everywhere and incessantly, it may be sensible 
to pause for a moment to inquire whether we have ever 
prepared before this year of grace and enlightened pa- 
triotism, 1916, or whether we are only just now, under 
an unprecedented prodding, beginning to get ready to 
commence to prepare? Many millions of words were 
talked into the Congressional Record last winter by mem- 
bers who insisted that we are absolutely unprepared, and 
that it is the prime duty of the present to prepare. 

Glancing back casually over a few years of recent 
history, we may be surprised to learn that we have been 
at least going through some of the motions of promoting 
preparedness. 

THE PRESENT GENERATION'S PREPAREDNESS 

Taking the work of the present generation, — the past 
thirty-four years, — for example, we find that we have 
increased our regular army from 25,000 to 90,000 men, 
or hy 350 per cent. Even during the Civil War of 1861- 
1865, our regular army was increased to only 50,000 
men. 

One generation ago, in 1880, our expenditure for the 
army (exclusive of pensions) was $38,000,000; to-day, 
the same expenditure is $106,000,000. In 1880 our ex- 
penditure for the navy was $13,500,000; to-day, it is 
$145,000,000. 

86 



PAST ATTEMPTS AT PREPAREDNESS 37 

Thus, the increase on the army during the generation 
has been nearly 300 per cent., and on the navy 1,100 per 
cent. At the same time, the expense for the army and 
navy, per capita of population, has increased from $1.00 
to $2.50, and from one-fifth of the total expenditures to 
more than one-half. 

Most of this extraordinary increase in military and 
naval expenditures has occurred during the latter half 
of the generation. In the seventeen years from 1882 to 
1898, our expenditures on the army amounted to $818,- 
000,000, or less than one-sixth of the total; during the 
seventeen years since the Spanish War, from 1899 to 
191 5, they have amounted to $2,340,000,000, or more 
than one-fourth of the total. In the first seventeen 
years, from 1882 to 1898, our expenditures on the navy 
amounted to $419,000,000, or one-thirteenth of the total 
expenditures; in the second seventeen years, from 1899 
to 191 5, they amounted to $1,800,000,000, or one-fifth 
of the total. 

If we had spent upon the army and navy during the 
seventeen years from 1899 to 191 5 the same sum that 
we spent upon them during the seventeen years from 
1882 to 1898, we would have saved the tidy sum of three 
billions of dollars. That is to say, we could have built 
the Panama Canal eight times over with the mere in- 
crease in our army and navy appropriations during the 
past seventeen years ! 

Our work for " preparedness," then, during the past 
generation and especially during the latter half of it, has 
increased enormously, whether it be viewed from abso- 
lute increase in size and expenditure, or from the in- 
crease relative to population, total expenditures, or great 
national tasks. 

AMERICAN, GERMAN AND BRITISH PREPAREDNESS 

Again, if we compare our recent work for " prepared- 
ness " with that of the so-called "militaristic" nations 



38 PREPAREDNESS 

of Europe, we cannot be said by any means to have done 
nothing, or even to have fallen behind them as far as 
expenditure of the people's money is concerned. Con- 
sider, for example, the following brief comparison of our 
military and naval expenses with those of " militaristic " 
Germany and " navalistic " Great Britain. 

Between our war with Spain in 1898 and the beginning 
of the present war in 1914, we expended for military and 
naval purposes (exclusive of pensions) the sum of four 
billions of dollars. During the same period, Germany 
expended for the same purposes a sum not quite so large. 
And yet we have complained bitterly of Germany's " mili- 
tarism " and " preparedness," while our experts tell us 
that we are "absolutely unprepared." In 1881, we spent 
$38,000,000 on our army, and Germany spent $91,000,000 
on its army; thirty years later, we spent $122,000,000 
on our army and Germany spent $204,000,000 on its 
army. 

During the same thirty years, while Germany increased 
its annual expenditures on the navy from $11,000,000 to 
$114,000,000, we increased ours from $13,000,000 to 
$120,000,000. A former Secretary of the Navy has de- 
clared that our navy has cost $500,000,000 more than 
Germany's navy has cost, but that ours is a poor second 
to it! There is evidently something rotten in another 
State than Denmark. 

Even Great Britain, " the mistress of the seas," in- 
creased her annual naval expenditures between 1881 
and 191 1 from $51,000,000 to $203,000,000, or by only 
400 per cent., while we increased ours within the same 
period by more than 900 per cent. 

Evidently, if militarism and navalism are to be meas- 
ured by expenditures for military and naval purposes, 
the United States may well be accused of illustrating the 
familiar phenomenon of the pot calling the kettle black. 
At all events, the facts stated above are proof positive 
and superabundant that we are not now just beginning 



PAST ATTEMPTS AT PREPAREDNESS 39 

to " prepare," but that we have led the world, during 
recent years, by our colossal efforts in that direction. 

AMERICA AND THE SWISS SYSTEM 

It is the fashion in our great Republic for the pre- 
pareders to demand " at least as much preparedness as 
the little Republic of Switzerland provides." But it is 
quite possible that our people are ignorant of the fact 
that while Switzerland has expended for military pur- 
poses during the past ten years the sum of $65,000,000, 
we have expended for military purposes (exclusive of 
the navy) during the same time, the sum of $1,300,000- 
000, or just about twenty times as much! 

It is true that our army numbers less than one-fifth 
as many men as are trained for war in Switzerland, — 
the latter possessing an army of " citizen soldiers " num- 
bering a half-million. To balance this disadvantage, 
however, we have, instead of the Alps, the Atlantic and 
Pacific Oceans, and a navy upon which we have ex- 
pended during the past ten years the sum of $1,200,- 
000,000. 

Our preparedness upon the land, however, must be 
made equal to Switzerland's, even though it cost us one 
hundred times as much as Switzerland expends ; and our 
rank as a " world power " demands a military prepared- 
ness able tO' cope with that of a victorious Germany, and 
a naval preparedness second to none, — not even to that 
of an undefeated Great Britain ! So say our valiant pre- 
pareders, and they are moving heaven and earth to ac- 
complish their object of " preparing " our reluctant Re- 
public by means of a campaign unprecedented for energy, 
ability and enthusiasm even in the Continent of War 
Lords and Political Despots. 



in 

PREPAREDNESS FOR WHAT? 

THE energy, ability and patriotic sentiment back 
of the campaign for " preparedness " would cer- 
tainly be most praiseworthy, were they exerted 
for a truly praiseworthy purpose. It is an excellent 
thing to prepare, with energy, ability and love of coun- 
try, provided that we prepare for the right thing and by 
the right means. The plausible term " preparedness " is 
usually explained or defined by the further plausible 
terms " adequate armaments " and an " efficient army 
and navy." Now, there is something peculiarly attrac- 
tive to the man of the Twentieth Century, and particu- 
larly to the American, perhaps, in the term " adequate " 
or " efficient." Whatever we have, we desire to be 
" adequate " or " efficient." 

It is impossible, however, for anything to be merely 
adequate or efficient; it must be adequate for something, 
it must be efficient for something. What is it, then, for 
which the armaments that are being so vociferously de- 
manded in the United States at the present time are to 
be adequate or efficient? 

In our Southland, the Captain Hobsons predict every 
little while an inevitable war with Japan; let us, then, 
they insist, make our armaments adequate to prevent 
Japan from causing the sun of our national greatness to 
set in the Pacific. 

In New England, the Captain Gardners dream of 
the Yellow Peril and its menace to the white man's civi- 
lization ; of perfidious Albion striking at our hearts 
through Canada, or sweeping our commerce from the 
seas and bombarding Boston and New York; of a vic- 

40 



PREPAREDNESS FOR WHAT? 41 

torious Germany invading our own coasts or South 
America with submarines, superdreadnoughts and an 
army of several milHon veteran soldiers. Therefore, 
they wail. Let us arm! Let us prepare to defend our 
firesides and our Monroe Doctrine ! 

In our Middle States and throughout the West, the 
Colonel Roosevelts iterate and reiterate the warning 
that the United States must guard againsj the imminent 
danger of being Belgiumized or Chinafied, and like the 
agitators of old they clamor : To your tents, to your 
tents, O Israel ! " The most important lesson for the 
United States to learn from the present war," they de- 
clare, " is the vital need that it shall at once take steps 
to prepare." 

The tumult of the European War has mingled with 
these voices of fear and warning, and many of our fel- 
low-countrymen have caught the contagion. From the 
builders of superdreadnoughts down to the " social lead- 
ers " who are shouldering muskets or making lint and 
bandages, Americans are busily, even hysterically, en- 
gaged in " preparing." Now, in spite of the fact that 
our country has not been attacked by a foreign foe 
throughout a century of " unpreparedness," and in spite 
of the further fact that our potential enemies are busily 
engaged in destroying each other's armaments, it is 
nevertheless entirely possible that these prophecies of 
evil may be realized some time in the future. All things 
are possible, — even that Mars may make an attack upon 
the Earth by way of the Moon ! 



IV 

MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 

IT is true that to the unimpassioned observer of the 
prevalent passion for " preparedness," there appear 
other reasons for the advocacy of " adequate arma- 
ments " than a genuine fear of foreign invasion and a 
determination to get ready to repel it. Before discussing 
this last reason, then, let us briefly consider three of the 
others. These are not so popular, and not so generally 
accepted, — at least in public ; but they undoubtedly exist, 
and they add considerable weight to the momentum of 
" the campaign." 

POLITICS 

In the first place, there is politics. Such adroit poli- 
ticians as the Roosevelts and the Hobsons leave us to 
conjecture, rather than supply us with admissions, as to 
the close connection between politics and the preaching 
of " preparedness." The Gardners, however, have sup- 
plied us with publicly acknowledged, — or boasted, — and 
most convincing, testimony as to the value of the arma- 
ments plank in the platform of the politician ambitious 
to secure the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. For ex- 
ample, after Representative Gardner, of Massachusetts, 
had made some speeches in Congress on " Preparedness," 
had offered a resolution for the appointment of a com- 
mission of inquiry into our " unpreparedness," and had 
given out newspaper interviews and a carefully prepared 
statement to thirty-two selected newspapers, his " next 
step," he naively admits, " was to go home to be re- 
elected." " I spoke continuously upon this topic," — dur- 

43 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 48 

ing his campaign for reelection, — he testifies, " and upon 
very little else in my district. The people were so dis- 
gusted with my views of the question that they elected 
me by over 12,000 plurality, — somewhat in contrast to 
what happened last year. I have the honor to be the 
worst defeated man who ever ran for governor in Massa- 
chusetts on the Republican ticket. But this year, after 
preaching this doctrine, I had 12,000 plurality." ^ 

This emphatic testimony as to gubernatorial aspira- 
tions and success has not fallen by the wayside, but has 
been taken to heart by the candidates for the governor- 
ship of Massachusetts in 1915. One of these candidates 
has taken it so much to heart that he has made his cam- 
paign in an armored automobile that is later to perform 
another kind of campaign service on the battle-line in 
France. His automobile is built like a torpedo, painted 
battleship gray, and provided with peep-holes or port- 
holes, through which machine guns are to pour their mis- 
siles upon the Germans, and through which the bel- 
ligerent candidate pours the hot shot of his oratory. 

In a speech before the House of Representatives, Jan- 
uary 21, 1915, Mr. Gardner repeated and emphasized 
his testimony as to the political value of advocating " pre- 
paredness," as follows : " I know what I am talking 
about, for I have already tried several experiments in 
that line. I am not eloquent. I have not even the sub- 
lime gift of the gab. Hitherto I have never been able to 
make an audience applaud me more than a small frac- 
tion of a small second. Hitherto I never in my life felt 
the glowing consciousness that an audience wanted me 
to continue. But on this question of the national defense 
I have got my audience going as if I were William Jen- 
nings Bryan talking prohibition to a convention of patent 
medicine dealers. Never before in my life have I had 
applause as if my audience were paid a dollar a clap, 

^ Mr. Gardner's testimony before the House of Representatives' 
Committee on Naval Affairs, December 18, 1914. 



44. PREPAREDNESS 

and I confess I like the new sensation. So I just give 
fair warning that if any one of you pacifico Members of 
Congress wants to challenge me to a joint debate in the 
month of March before any audience, — black, white, 
yellow or pink, — I am at your service, and you will not 
have to give me any gate receipts or honorarium or any 
other of the fifty-seven different varieties of high-brow 
pickings either." 

We must acknowledge that Mr. Gardner's content- 
ment with I'otes alone as compensation for his elocu- 
tionary efforts is entirely explicable ; and we must accept 
his convincing testimony as to the value of " prepared- 
ness " as a vote-getter. His listening colleagues in Con- 
gress were duly impressed, doubtless, by this testimony; 
for we are already launched in the mid-stream of a con- 
gressional campaign, the chief slogan of which is " pre- 
paredness." The protagonists of the respective parties 
are already contending for the credit of having brought 
this issue before the public; and Republican leaders are 
copiously lamenting the advantage that the Democratic 
congress and administration have in being able to carry 
through a programme for preparedness during the com- 
ing winter, and before the election of 1916. From ex- 
presidential aspirants for " third cups of coffee," down to 
candidates for the office of borough alderman, politicians 
anxious to serve their country are filling the air with 
vociferous demands for " adequate armaments " or " pre- 
paredness." 

All this has its amusing side, characteristic of Ameri- 
can political life ; but, fundamentally, it is playing with 
fire. The man who dares to appeal to the fighting in- 
stincts of the American people, — and we are a fighting 
people ; who inflames our national passions, — and we 
have them; who evokes our international and racial 
prejudices, — and these too are not unknown among us; 
such a man, be he desirous of the highest or of the lowest 
office within the gift of the people, richly deserves to be 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 45 

overwhelmed by an avalanche of votes at the polls and 
retired to, or kept in, the innocuous desuetude of private 
life! 

The influence of " politics " on the programme of pre- 
paredness, — after the political aspirant has ridden into 
office on the wave of preparedness agitation, — may be 
judged by the following facts relating to coaling and 
naval stations which a former Secretary of the Navy, 
Mr. Meyer, recalled in a recent magazine article. " Until 
within a few years," writes Mr. Meyer, " no naval ap- 
propriation could pass the Senate which did not meet 
the sanction of both a Northern and Southern Senator, 
each of whom was a member of the Committee on Naval 
Affairs. It is interesting, in consequence, to analyze 
some of the appropriations between 1895 and 1910. In 
1899 a site was purchased in Frenchman's Bay, Maine, 
at a cost of $24,650, — far above the assessed valuation, — 
and later an additional amount of $600,000 was ex- 
pended to obtain there an absolutely unnecessary coaling- 
station, which has since been dismantled, as it was prac- 
tically unused. At the Portsmouth Navy- Yard, so called, 
in Kittery, Maine, a dock was built at an expense of $1,- 
122,800, and later it was found necessary to blast away 
rock in the channel in order to reach the dock, at an ad- 
ditional expense of $745,300. Between 1895 and 1910 
improvements, machinery, repairs and maintenance in 
the yard amounted to $10,857,693, although there was a 
large navy-yard within seventy miles. 

" On the other hand, at Port Royal, South Carolina, 
a dock was built at the insistence of the Southern Sena- 
tor, at a cost of $450,000, which proved useless, and, al- 
though the original cost of the site was but $5,000, it 
was not abandoned as a naval base until $2,275,000 had 
been expended. Not the least daunted by this extravagant 
waste, the same Senator determined to have a share of 
the naval melon for his State, so, with the assistance of 
the Northern Senator, he obtained the establishment of 



46 PREPAREDNESS 

another naval station at Charleston, South Carolina, in 
1901. There was no strategic value thus accomplished, 
nor was it necessary, with the Norfolk Navy- Yard lo- 
cated at Hampton Roads. The $5,000,000 which has been 
squandered at Charleston includes a dry-dock built for 
battleships, costing $1,250,000, but which experience 
shows can only be used by torpedo-destroyers and gun- 
boats. 

" The United States has over twice as many first- 
class navy-yards as Great Britain, with a navy more 
than double the size of ours, and more than three times 
as many as Germany, whose navy is larger than that of 
the United States. The total cost of navy-yards up to 
June 30, 1910, with land, public works, improvements, 
machinery and maintenance, including repairs, amounts 
to $320,600,000. Overburdened with a superfluous num- 
ber of navy-yards distributed along the Atlantic Coast 
from Maine to Louisiana, in 1910 I recommended that 
Congress give up and dispose of [eight] naval stations, 
. . . none of which was a first-class station. The aver- 
age yearly cost of maintaining these stations between 
1905 and 1910 was $1,672,675, and very little useful work 
had been performed at any of them. Later, I practi- 
cally closed them, but could not abolish or dispose of 
them, no action having been taken by Congress. Pensa- 
cola and New Orleans have since been reopened by my 
successor. The Pensacola Navy- Yard, originally a mili- 
tary reservation, had cost the United States Govern- 
ment, up to 1910, $12,200,000, with little return in the 
way of output. 

" The fundamental cause of excessive expenditures is 
due to the fact that appropriations are not made with the 
sole view of the battle efficiency of the fleet (which is 
the navy) and its military requirements. Politics and 
log-rolling, as I have shown, have entered into the mak- 
ing of appropriations by Congress. A more recent case 
is the training-station outside of Chicago, established in 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 47 

1905. The original site was a gift, but $3,646,000 has 
been expended, buildings erected on a lavish scale, quite 
unnecessary and not suitable, due to the zeal of a con- 
gressman of the district, a member of the Naval Com- 
mittee. One-half the amount w^ould have more than 
met the requirements and have been better adapted to 
what a training-station should be." 

PROFITS 

Next to the alliance between preparedness and politics, 
there has been discovered a close connection between pre- 
paredness and profits, between dividends and dread- 
noughts. Certain manufacturers of war supplies have 
engaged actively in the manufacture of war scares. Reg- 
ularly, for years, when Congress has had before it appro- 
priation bills for the army and navy, a war scare has 
swept over the country, or at least over the capitol, and 
the " imminent " danger of war with Japan or with Ger- 
many has been used to dragoon the congressmen into 
voting as large appropriations for preparedness as possi- 
ble. In Germany, Great Britain and Japan, investiga- 
tion has revealed the fact that similar war scares have 
been stimulated by the manufacturers of armaments with 
the object of increasing a demand for their products. In 
our country, such men as Mr. Orville Wright are mod- 
erate and modest enough to say : " I do not advocate 
the acquisition (by the Government) of too many ma- 
chines because I happen to be in the aeroplane business " ; 
but, he naively adds : " What would stimulate most the 
manufacture of aeroplanes here [in the United States] 
would be some real business from the Government. If 
a builder knew that he had a market for, say, 100 ma- 
chines, provided they came up to the requirements laid 
down by the authorities, it would prove the most power- 
ful incentive possible." It has since been reported that 
the syndicate which recently bought the aeroplane pat- 
ents, factories, training-school and equipment of Mr. 



48 PREPAREDNESS 

Wright's company at Dayton, Ohio, has promised " to 
cooperate in every way possible to make the prepared- 
ness movement a success." 

Not all the inventors and manufacturers of military 
equipment are so moderate and frank as Mr. Wright. 
For example, the head of the Bethlehem Steel Company, 
— whose " war orders " in four months made 1914 the 
banner year in the company's history, — gave out an in- 
terview to the newspapers as follows : 

" A strong navy is a nation's chief asset. Germany is 
now splendidly equipped upon land, but as control of the 
seven seas has always been Great Britain's policy, Ger- 
many must equal the latter's fleet to win. Nations con- 
trolling the seas have ruled the world in the past, and 
it will always be so. Let America take warning." 

These fervent adjurations to the public to prepare are 
usually salted with " patriotism," the injunction to pur- 
chase large quantities of their own products being cou- 
pled with expressions of undying affection for the land 
of their nativity, — or adoption, — and a hyphenated citi- 
zenship and the last drop of blood being freely prom- 
ised to the altar of the country's defense. 

But this " patriotism " would be more impressive if 
the American public knew that American-made arms 
and ammunition, battleships and airships, would be sold 
only to the American government. The lamentable fact, 
however, is that patriotism is not permitted to interfere 
with profits, and American manufacturers have engaged 
with desperate energy in enabling America's possible 
enemies to " prepare." For example, before the Presi- 
dent placed an embargo on the shipment of arms and 
ammunition into Mexico, American manufacturers 
poured an avalanche of such material across the border 
into the hands of the government and the rebel troops 
alike. During the continuance of the embargo, the man- 
ufacturers piled up their products in Mobile, New Or- 
leans and other Southern ports, and as soon as the em- 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 49 

bargo was lifted, the avalanche began again. Through- 
out all this period, it appeared but too probable that the 
United States government would be called upon to in- 
tervene in Mexico itself; and American manufacturers 
who were loudly demanding this intervention were sup- 
plying the Mexicans with guns and bullets which were 
enabling the Mexican anarchy to continue and which 
would be used, in case of intervention, against American 
soldiers. 

Again, both before and during the present war in Eu- 
rope, these same manufacturers have joined lustily in 
the demand that the United States shall " prepare," and 
yet they have made and shipped hundreds of millions of 
dollars worth of military equipment to the very nations 
against whom we are called upon to prepare. And they 
have actually reversed the maxim that " charity begins at 
home," by selling this equipment to foreign governments 
at lower prices than they exact from our own govern- 
ment. For example, as is shown in the report of the 
Secretary of the Navy for 1913: in 1894 one of our 
producers furnished armor plate to Russia at $249 a ton, 
while charging our own government $616.14 a ton. In 
191 1, the same company furnished armor plate to Italy at 
$395.03, while charging the United States $420; and in 
191 3, they furnished armor for the Japanese ship, Ha- 
runa, building at Kobe, at $406.35 a ton, while exacting 
prices ranging from $440 to $504 for the American bat- 
tleship No. 39. 

Another significant fact is revealed in the report of the 
Secretary of the Navy for 1914, which says : " Twice 
were the armor-plate factories saved a monopoly of this 
business through a * mysterious providence.' There are 
only three concerns in the country which make armor 
plate, and last year when bids were invited, all three 
made identically the same bids to a cent. They justified 
this sham of bidding by saying that the department had 
fixed the price and divided the business between the three 



50 PREPAREDNESS 

concerns regardless of the bidding, making the award on 
one-third the quantity desired to each firm at the lowest 
figures quoted, which was always, as may be supposed, 
a figure which gave inordinate profits." 

In the light of such facts, there is small wonder that 
the question has been raised, Is the lack of battle 
cruisers in our navy, and the incessant demand for more 
dreadnoughts, due, partly at least, to the fact that the 
battle cruiser, — which is of very, great effectiveness, — 
requires far less armor plate than does the dreadnought? 
There is small wonder, also, that the larger question has 
been raised. Would it not be advisable for the govern- 
ment to manufacture its own military and naval sup- 
plies? 

The shipment of military supplies of all kinds to as 
many of the belligerent nations of Europe and Asia as 
can procure and pay for them has been enormously stim- 
ulated by the present war. Naturally laws forbid the 
direct shipment of warships ; but parts of ten or more 
submarines have been manufactured in Pennsylvania, 
assembled in Canada, and shipped to Great Britain, by 
a single American company. This company has also 
built eight or more submarines in Massachusetts for the 
British government, and these are being guarded by 
United States naval officials " until such time as a dis- 
position satisfactory to all parties can be arranged." 

But, although debarred for the present by neutrality 
laws from shipping warships and armies complete, to 
our " possible enemies," our American manufacturers 
have found a bonanza in the shipment of everything 
needful for them. In fact, certain large fields of Ameri- 
can industry have been revolutionized by the attempt to 
supply the great powers of Europe and Asia with mili- 
tary equipment. By June of 191 5, the war orders placed 
in the United States totalled more than one billion dol- 
lars, and the country was informed that this was a mere 
beginning. Fifteen firms in Detroit received a $31,- 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 51 

000,000 order in one day from Russia, New England 
is declared to be more prosperous than at any other time 
in its history, its exports from its own ports having 
trebled and quadrupled within six months after the war 
began, besides other uncounted millions shipped by New 
England manufacturers through New York. The ex- 
ports from New York in the single month of July, 191 5, 
increased nearly $100,000,000 over those of July, 1914, — 
the month before the war began. Every railroad and 
every coastwise steamship line running into the city have 
been congested for weeks by exports for the war. In 
one day, there cleared from New York seven steamships 
loaded with 100,000 tons of military supplies, including 
ammunition, armored automobiles, guns, — two of these 
14-inch guns, 53 feet long and 60 inches wide at the 
breach. Part of the cargo of these steamers was made 
up of hospital supplies and coffins; thus, the old-time 
policy of shipping rum and copies of the Bible on the 
same ship to " the heathen " is paralleled by the present- 
day shipments of death-dealing and body-healing equip- 
ment on the same steamer. The exports of surgical goods 
have doubled during the year, and American undertakers 
have felt the stimulus in trade. Another day's consign- 
ment was that of 100,000 shells on Norse and Danish 
steamers for use in the German army. Orders for 25,- 
000,000 shrapnel shells costing $400,000,000, were placed 
in the United States before the end of the first year of 
the war. The pressure on the New England railroads, 
which traverse " the ammunition belt," has been enorm- 
ous. The piers of the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. are sur- 
rounded by lighters, on which men are working night 
and day to keep pace with the accumulating freight. 
Various ports on the Pacific coast have been nearly over- 
whelmed by the war exports to Vladivostok and Japan. 
To move these exports on the other side, 20,000 freight 
cars and 400 locomotives had to be shipped from Amer- 
ica to transport into Russia such commodities as armored 



52 PREPAREDNESS 

cars, dynamite, pig-lead and copper, guns, rifles, barbed 
wire for the trenches, etc. 

The needs of the cavalrymen of the Old World have 
not been neglected by American shippers. A Western 
firm has a contract to supply 500 horses per week to 
Great Britain ; South Omaha sold $4,000,000 worth of 
horses to the allies in the first year of the war, and ex- 
pects to double this in the second year. These are ex- 
amples of the export trade in horses, which increased 
during one month (February, 191 5) from $200,000 to 
$9,300,000, while the export of saddles and harness in- 
creased eleven fold. 

Nor have the needs of foreign aviators been neglected 
by the American manufacturers of aeroplanes and their 
accessories. Scores of plants in various parts of the 
United States are rushing their products to " the possi- 
ble enemies " of their country. For example, one estab- 
lishment in Buffalo, with a capacity of twelve aeroplanes 
a day, has shipped abroad 400 aeroplanes and 1,000 
aeroplane motors, and is now working on orders for 600 
more planes and 1,000 motors. The same firm has 
shipped twenty huge flying-boats of the " America " 
type, equipped with two 90 horse-power motors, and is 
working on another biplane of 180 horse-power, with a 
speed of 90 miles per hour, which is to go to Great 
Britain. Another firm in Ithaca has been filling large 
orders for biplanes of 90 horse-power, and is now 
turning them out for export, with 160 horse-power. In 
Marblehead, Los Angeles, Dayton, New York, Norwich, 
Grinnell, Paterson, Bridgeport, and many other places, 
European orders for war-planes and motors have been 
placed in enormous quantities. 

Numerous and varied industries have been trans- 
formed from subserving the interests of peace to supply- 
ing the sinews of war. As a few examples of these, 
there may be mentioned the New York Air Brake Co. 
and the Westinghouse Air Brake Co., which received an 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 53 

order from Russia for $30,000,000 and ^35,000,000 worth 
of shells, respectively, each shell to be provided with 260 
bullets; the Des Moines Monarch Machine and Stamp- 
ing Co., which has a $6,000,000 contract for 1,000 shrap- 
nel shells per diem ; automobile companies exported $47,- 
000,000 v/orth of armored automobiles in the first year 
of the war; a brewery plant in West Virginia has been 
leased by the National Salt and Chemical Co. and de- 
voted to the manufacture of explosive chemicals ; sun- 
dry typewriting and adding machine companies in the 
Middle West have formed the " American Ammunition 
Co.," for securing contracts for high explosives and 
shrapnel shells, and received a contract during the first 
week after organization for $10,000,000 worth of ammu- 
nition; the manufacturers of locomotives, electric boats, 
cars, car and foundry supplies, ball-bearings, &c., &c., 
have shown wholly unsuspected ability to convert their 
plants into war-supply factories, and with innumerable 
others have helped to make the United States the great- 
est manufacturer of war materials in the world. 

The industries engaged in the production of raw ma- 
terials for these manufacturing establishments have re- 
sponded pari passu to the demand for their products. 
For example, the output of copper in a single month 
(May, 1 91 5) surpassed all previous records by more 
than 25,000,000 pounds; and despite the enormously in- 
creased production, the price of copper increased eight 
cents per pound in four months. The production of zinc 
and lead was greatly increased, and yet their prices, too, 
increased by 25c. and 3/^c., respectively, attaining heights 
that have not been touched since the Civil War. Aus- 
tralian zinc mines, which formerly sent their metal to 
Liege, Belgium, have been sending it to the United 
States, where it is refined and then exported to Europe. 
The town of Joplin, Missouri, has sprung into inter- 
national importance as a leading center of zinc or spelter. 
Even the manufacture of benzol, a necessary ingredient 



54 PREPAREDNESS 

in certain kinds of explosives, has sprung up in the 
United States; and the Lackawanna Steel Co., by the 
utilization of coal smoke, is said to have become the 
largest manufacturer of benzol in the world. Steel is 
once more king, and its output of near 1,000,000 tons a 
week has restored pay envelopes to 200,000 idle men in 
this single industry. 

So enormous has been the investment of new capital 
and labor in the business of manufacturing and export- 
ing military supplies, that existing plants have been 
largely extended, and new villages and towns have sprung 
up as if by magic to meet the demand. One of the most 
striking illustrations of this phenomenal growth is that 
of North Eddystone, Pennsylvania. Here the Reming- 
ton Arms Co. of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Ilion, 
New York, has had erected for it a building that is said 
to be the largest in the world. It covers fifteen acres of 
ground, is seven stories high, and its " glistening moun- 
tain range " of steel and tile is all under one great glass 
roof. It took the Baldwin Locomotive Works less than 
four months to erect this monster building for the Rem- 
ington Co., and for several months past the 15,000 em- 
ployes whom it shelters have been working extra time 
in the manufacture of rifles, — to the number of 1,500,000 
per annum! 

The Baldwin Locomotive Works, itself, accepted a 
contract for $97,000,000 worth of shrapnel shells ; but 
since its original charter did not permit it to engage in 
this far-away by-product of locomotive making, it char- 
tered a subsidiary company, the Eddystone Ammunition 
Co., and erected a second huge plant at North Eddystone 
for it. This building covers nearly fourteen acres, and 
turns out shrapnel at the rate of 20,000 rounds a day. 
The president of the company has planned to maintain 
this industry for at least five years ; for he calculates that 
even though the present war does not last that long, the 
United States and other nations will demand the utmost 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 55 

product of the plant for at least that term of years. More 
than a hundred locomotives are nearing completion for 
the task of transporting the rifle and shrapnel products of 
the two huge plants, and a great ocean pier is being 
erected to enable ocean freighters to assist in this task 
and in that of moving the pov^der manufactured just 
across the river by the Du Pont Powder Works. The 
Du Pont Company, too, has come upon booming times, 
and is reported to have enough orders already in hand 
to keep its various plants running at top speed for five 
years. There is small wonder that in the enlargement of 
one of its plants, it found it necessary to create a new 
village of more than 300 houses, or that it has been 
obliged to apply to the State of New Jersey for a grant 
of five miles of the Delaware water front at Penn's 
Grove and Gibbstown. 

The rise of the Eddystone works has brought an army 
of some 40,000 skilled workmen to the vicinity of this 
little town in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and al- 
ready the values of real estate in adjacent parts of the 
county are being " boosted " by this advent of a popu- 
lation of some 200,000 souls. 

It is but natural that such abnormal development 
should have caused a wave of speculation to sweep across 
the country in these and many allied lines of industry. 
How wild and dangerous this speculation has become is 
illustrated by the fact that the purchase of stocks on the 
New York Stock Exchange increased threefold within 
three recent weeks ; within one week, there were two " 2- 
000,000-share days," and within the same short space of 
time, Bethlehem Steel gained fifty-four points and Cru- 
cible Steel twenty-three points. The common stock of 
these two companies, although no dividends had ever 
been paid upon it, increased within a year from $26 to 
$600, and from $22 to $83, respectively, while the stock 
of the Hercules Powder Co. jumped fifty points in a 
single day, and that of the Bethlehem Steel Co. seventy- 



56 PREPAREDNESS 

one points within twelve hours. Many stocks have 
largely increased their dividends within the year, while 
some have paid large ones for the first time. Under the 
" boosting " administered by war orders, the Electric 
Boat Co., for example, has declared a dividend of 12 per 
cent., which is the first since 1909. The Bethlehem 
Steel Co. was considered to be in a bad way, aside from 
its ordnance department; but so impressive was the ac- 
quisition of war-orders to the extent of $150,000,000 
that the stock of the company has increased to such an 
extent that more than $15,000,000 has been added to its 
value. Great additions, of course, have been added to its 
plant; so that in this Pennsylvania Bethlehem there has 
arisen a war-supply factory which is surpassed the world 
over only by the establishments of Krupp in Germany 
and Creusot in France ! 

The year's " high records " in war orders, stock prices, 
dividends and prices, have had the natural result of com- 
bining certain industries into gigantic " trusts," one of 
which, a new "steel trust," promises to eclipse the $1,- 
000,000,000 Steel Corporation which astonished the world 
a decade or so ago. The next logical and probable re- 
sult will be for these American trusts to join the inter- 
national trusts that bestride the world in the manufac- 
ture and sale of military supplies. Some faint idea of the 
far-reaching power and methods of these world-trusts 
has been given in speeches in the British Parliament. 
For example, Philip Snowden declared in the House of 
Commons, in 1914, that an "armaments ring" not na- 
tional, but international, with international management 
and international stockholders, supplied the various Eu- 
ropean governments with military supplies ; that mem- 
bers of the various parliaments were large stockholders 
in these concerns, and were personally interested in in- 
creasing the demand for their products in the various 
countries. Lord Welby, in the same year, declared : 
" We are in the hands of an organization of crooks. 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 57 

They are politicians, generals, manufacturers of arma- 
ments, and journalists. All of them are anxious for un- 
limited expenditures, and go on inventing scares to ter- 
rify the public and to terrify Ministers of the Crown." 
Reference has already been made to the international 
newspaper campaign, financed by " the armaments ring," 
by means of which the demand for military equipment 
and supplies has been enormously increased. 

But manufacturers of these materials are not only 
lured on by a real and factitious demand; they are also 
subjected to an enormous pressure from behind. That 
is, the host of stockholders and employes urge the manu- 
facturers to the limit, for the sake of profits, wages and 
opportunities of employment. The investment of enor- 
mous sums of new capital in these plants has created a 
condition of affairs in which an exaggerated demand for 
their products is necessary for the realization of return, 
profits and dividends. It is declared by financial experts 
that, so large has been this diversion of capital and labor, 
this country would experience a terrific crisis, should 
the great war end to-morrow. Hence many a to-morrow 
will be needed, — either in the continuance of the war or 
in the increased demand for military supplies by the 
governments in time of peace, — before this return can 
be made. 

Added to the stockholders' demand for " prepared- 
ness " as a means of protecting the new " infant indus- 
try," or of repaying and maintaining this enormous 
vested interest, ** so necessary to the defense of the coun- 
try," there will inevitably be added that of the tens of 
thousands of new laborers who have been drafted into it. 
The Baldwin Locomotive Works, for example, employs 
in ordinary times, even when trade is booming, only 19,- 
000 men; by adding the Eddystone Ammunition Com- 
pany to its business, it is increasing this number to 40,- 
000. On orders from Russia alone, it is said that the 
company increased its employes from 7,000 to 12,000. 



58 PREPAREDNESS 

The Bethlehem Steel Company's war contracts enabled 
it to keep 12,000 men on its payroll during the first win- 
ter of the war, instead of its usual 3,500. These exam- 
ples illustrate the amount of employment that is being 
offered, — in many cases by night as well as by day, — to 
laborers of every degree of skill, from lathe-turners up 
to ordnance experts of the United States Army, who 
have resigned their public office in order to accept lucra- 
tive positions with private firms, and who have been 
released by the government so that they may aid in 
" the development of industries designed to defend the 
United States." 

The Du Pont Powder Co. has just distributed 2,000 
shares of its stock, valued at $1,616,000, among its em- 
ployes. The proposal to devote $3,500,000 to the enlarge- 
ment of the Philadelphia Navy- Yard, so as to enable it 
" to build big ships," has been hailed with delight by the 
local newspapers, for the reason that " it would mean 
thousands more of workmen." 

In view of such developments as these, it is not diffi- 
cult to foresee the vastly increased political pressure 
which voters in such a State as Pennsylvania will bring 
to bear upon their representatives in Congress to procure 
for their districts government contracts for military and 
naval " preparedness " ; nor is it difficult to foresee the 
lobby and the " invisible government " which the stock- 
holders in these industries, scattered as they are through- 
out the nation and abroad, will maintain at Washington 
and other capitals, for the purpose of securing, by the 
use of graft if need be, and in the name of " prepared- 
ness," extravagant appropriations for military, naval and 
aerial purposes. 

But many other industries than those which directly 
supply military necessities have been stirred to their 
depths by the campaign for preparedness, and are swell- 
ing the chorus of demand for it. For example, at the 
recent annual convention of the National Association of 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 59 

Cotton Manufactures, the president said in his opening 
address : 

" Military preparedness and industrial preparedness 
should go hand in hand. The sinews of war must be 
provided by the latter before the former can be developed 
to its full extent; and by commercial preparedness I 
mean not only the strengthening of those industries which 
would necessarily contribute supplies for a possible war, 
but all enterprises of manufacture, transportation and 
distribution, so that we can put behind any body of men 
enlisted in the nation's defense ' a united, prosperous, 
contented and determined population,' and be able to sup- 
ply all the varied wants of our people and furnish the 
fullest support to the Government in any time of trial. 
.... It is the duty of every true American to stand 
by the President in his effort to preserve our national 
dignity and honor. On the other hand, may we not urge 
it as an equal duty upon the President to stand by us 
in an effort to bring back and maintain the business pros- 
perity of the country? In the crisis that confronts us, 
all considerations of party advantage or sectional benefit 
must yield to the paramount necessity of placing the 
nation in a position of national industrial preparedness, 
ready to cope with any emergency that may arise, and the 
party which makes this its ideal will be the one to enlist 
the support of the American people." 

The same cue was taken by the Federation of Trade 
Press Associations at its annual convention, on which 
occasion it passed a resolution urging " military pre- 
paredness on a permanent basis for the United States." 

PROFESSIONAL AND SOCIAL PRESTIGE 

Closely connected with profits and preparedness, are 
the social prestige and personal ambition of the military 
and naval coterie which finds its center in Washington. 
Justice Brewer, of the United States Supreme Court, 
gave as his dying message to the American people a sol- 



60 PREPAREDNESS 

emn warning against the danger that our national capi- 
tal is becoming more and more the chief center of mili- 
tary and naval influence, and that this influence makes 
itself felt most powerfully in every crisis pregnant 
with the possibilities of war. With about 800 mili- 
tary officers located in Washington, and with them and 
their families in the social lime-light, the miUtary " gla- 
mor " of Old World society is becoming more and more 
prominent in the capital of our Republic. In receptions 
at the White House, at the Inaugural festivities, and on 
almost every public occasion, the army and navy, in the 
words of Justice Brewer, " make the great American 
display." While this fact is certainly inconsistent with 
the democratic ideals of our New World Republic, it 
may safely be left, perhaps, to the common sense, or to 
the sense of humor and of the ridiculous, which have 
heretofore saved Americans from many of the follies 
and fripperies of European " high society." But the real 
and grave danger from this source is that these officers 
should form an invisible lobby, a military clique, socially 
powerful and backed up by " the soldier vote," and by 
means of it should exert a constant pressure upon Con- 
gress and the Executive both to increase armaments and 
to appeal to war as the only possible arbiter of inter- 
national disputes. That this danger is a real and grave 
one, is illustrated by many incidents familiar to those 
who read the daily press accounts of " happenings in 
Washington." Among them may be mentioned the fact 
that a recent chief of staff of the American army de- 
clared that we are wasting time in striving to strengthen 
arbitration, and that the only true course for us to pur- 
sue is to make our military and naval strength so great 
as to be beyond danger of attack. Again, the " fight- 
ing " admiral who started in command of the American 
fleet which sailed, as " messengers of peace," around the 
world, declared that the fewer statesmen and the more 
battleships we have, the less will be our danger of hav- 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 61 

ing war. Again, the country is filled with evidence of 
the feverish activity of Major-General Wood, Chief of 
Staff of the United States Army and Commander of the 
Department of the East, in furthering, to the utmost of 
his ability and w^ith all the spectacular effectiveness 
which a sensational press can lend him, whatever move- 
ment, from " business men's camps " to military train- 
ing in our public schools, that holds any promise of in- 
creasing the size of our army. The militarism of Eu- 
rope has taught us many wholesome lessons; but there 
is none of them more needed at the present time than 
that which points out the pernicious, the fatal, influence 
of such military cliques as surround the Kaiser and the 
Czar. Here, if anywhere in a Republic, eternal vigi- 
lance is the price of liberty. 

TO PRESERVE THE PEACE 

But, while we must not shut our eyes to the existence 
and danger of the unworthy motives which are pushing 
the campaign of " preparedness," we must candidly ac- 
knowledge that there are back of it at least two worthy 
motives, however mistaken these may be. The first of 
these is the belief that the best and only effective means 
of preserving the peace is to prepare for war, or, as 
present-day casuists put it, to " prepare against war." 
This belief is a very plausible one and has salved many 
a man's conscience as he has worked for or consented to 
the increase of armaments. 

Europe's Experience 

It was the belief which " the master mind " of Bis- 
marck put into practice in Prussia and forced upon the 
rest of Europe, making of the most civilized of conti- 
nents an armed camp, a Twentieth Century Sparta. So 
firmly was this belief cherished, so thoroughly was it 
acted upon for a half-century, that in the years preced- 
ing the present European War, the enormous sum of 



6S PREPAREDNESS 

two billions of dollars per annum was expended by Eu- 
rope upon its armaments, — all in the name of peace ! For 
a generation, the militarists have insisted that the only 
preservative of the world's peace was the German army 
and the British fleet. The German Emperor, they de- 
clared, was the man in all the world who was most de- 
serving of the Nobel Prize for doing most to further and 
maintain the peace of the world. 

The first international peace congress of the churches 
was being held in Constanz, Germany, when the Great 
War broke out; and as the delegates travelled through 
the Black Forest and down the Rhine, and saw the tens 
upon tens of thousands of German soldiers being mo- 
bilized on the French frontier, they said to themselves : 
Now, at last, in the face of this most stupendous fact, 
this particular dream of the militarists will be shattered 
forever. The German army and navy, the French and 
Russian armies and fortifications, the British super- 
dreadnoughts, and the vast military machine of civiliza- 
tion had been built up and confidently relied upon for 
a generation as the only certain means of preserving the 
world's peace; and now in one frightful moment they 
made possible and inevitable the largest and most de- 
structive, if not the most brutal and vindictive, war in 
all the history of the human race ! 

For a quarter of a century, those statesmen and pub- 
licists who repudiated the " peace " dream of the mili- 
tarists, and gave heed to the plain teachings of reason, 
prophesied insistently that Armageddon must inevitably 
follow upon " adequate armaments." 

The Anglo-American Experiment 

A century of experience, most significant though 
wholly neglected, even by the majority of Americans and 
Englishmen, taught the same lesson. This experience 
began at the end of the French Revolutionary and Napo- 
leonic cataclysms, and just at the close of the American 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 63 

war with Great Britain in 1815. At that time, the Ameri- 
can minister at the Court of St. James was that shrewd, 
level-headed, Yankee diplomatist, John Quincy Adams. 
He learned in 181 7 that the British government was 
planning to build war-ships on the Great Lakes so as to 
prevent another breach of the peace with the United 
States or to prepare for another invasion of Canada. 
He communicated with President Monroe in regard to 
the matter and was authorized to enter into negotiations 
upon it with the British government. Thereupon he 
wrote to Lord Castlereagh, the British Secretary of State 
for Foreign Affairs, as follows : " The increase of naval 
armaments on one side upon the Lakes during peace 
will necessitate the like increase on the other, and, be- 
sides causing an aggravation of useless expense to both 
parties, must operate as a continual stimulus of suspicion 
and ill will. The moral and political tendency of such 
a system must be to war, and not to peace. The Ameri- 
can government proposes, therefore, mutually to reduce 
to the same extent all naval armaments upon the Lakes. 
The degree to which they shall be reduced is left at the 
option of Great Britain. The greater the reduction the 
more acceptable it will be to the President of the United 
States, and most acceptable of all should it be agreed to 
maintain on either side, during the peace, no other force 
than such as may be necessary for the collection of the 
revenue. The undersigned may confidently hope that 
this proposal, mutually and equally to disarm upon the 
American Lakes, will be received and entertained in the 
same spirit in which it is made, as a pledge of intentions 
sincerely friendly, and earnestly bent upon the perma- 
nent preservation of peace." 

This statesmanlike ofiFer was accepted in the friendly 
spirit in which it was made, Castlereagh replying: "As 
to keeping a number of armed vessels parading about 
the Lakes, it would be absurd. There can be no motive 
for it, and everything beyond what is necessary to guard 



64. PREPAREDNESS 

against smuggling is calculated to produce mischief." 
The two governments, accordingly, soon afterwards en- 
tered into the Rush-Bagot Agreement, by means of which 
it was provided that the armed forces upon the Great 
Lakes should never exceed four ships of one hundred 
tons displacement. In spite of numerous attempts by 
ship-builders, ammunition-makers, and political jingoes, 
on both sides of the border, and in both England and the 
United States, to abrogate this agreement and thus pave 
the way for profits, politics and preparedness, the agree- 
ment has been faithfully adhered to. There is to-day, 
on this " American Mediterranean," a single gun-boat 
of four hundred tons' displacement. Compare this po- 
lice-boat with a superdreadnought of 31,000 tons' dis- 
placement, and it may be realized how effectually the 
Great Lakes are " unarmed." Not only along this part 
of the Canadian border-line, but throughout its conti- 
nental extent of nearly 4,000 miles, there is not a fort- 
ress or a gun. And yet, despite, or because of, this rank 
" unpreparedness," we are celebrating to-day a Hun- 
dred Years of Peace with our great British neighbor.^ 

Would that poor old Europe had possessed, a hundred 
years ago, a statesman so level-headed and far-seeing as 
John Quincy Adams, and that it had been persuaded by 
him to a mutual limitation or destruction of armaments ! 
Those " invincible " fortifications along the frontier be- 
tween Germany and Belgium and France would never, 
then, have arisen to challenge the military and political 
prestige of the respective war-lords; those terrible Ma- 
zurian Lakes between Germany and Russia would not 
now be discolored and corrupted by the blood and corpses 
of tens upon tens of thousands of Russian and German 
youths. 

In face of the plain teaching of reason and common 
sense, of the experience of Europe in reaping the most 

* Back of Canada, of course, stand the British Empire and the 
British fleet, — " the mistress of the sea." 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 65 

terrible of wars from armaments sowed to preserve the 
peace, and of the experience of the United States and 
the British Empire in preserving the peace between them 
for a hundred years in the absence of mutually menac- 
ing armaments, it may readily be understood how all 
but the rabid militarists have surrendered forever as a 
foolish fallacy and a wicked lie the hoary old belief that 
" adequate armaments " should be built up to preserve 
the peace, that civilized man should devote all the re- 
sources of Twentieth Century science to military " pre- 
paredness against war." 

FOR A DEFENSIVE WAR 

But there is one bulwark of the militarist creed still 
left. It is this : Since it is impossible in the face of rea- 
son and experience to prepare against war, both reason 
and experience bid us to prepare for war, — a war of de- 
fense. Mr. Orville Wright, for example, a distinguished 
but relatively very moderate advocate of preparedness, 
writes : " I believe that the possession of too much 
military equipment leads to war. The evidence of that 
is in Europe. But I do believe that this country should 
have enough war paraphernalia to protect itself while it 
completes more elaborate preparations." What a plau- 
sible, appealing argument is this ! It is far more convinc- 
ing to the average man, of self-preservatory instincts, 
than is the former rather altruistic argument that we 
should prepare for war in order to preserve the peace. 
Who is there who does not fervently desire to defend the 
country and his own fireside against the attack of a for- 
eign foe? 

It is true that never, not one single time, have foreign 
foes declared war upon us before we declared war upon 
them. It is true, also, that we have had many a dis- 
pute, some of them, and two in particular/ of grave, 
and even vital importance ; but that in spite of the gravity 

* The Alabama Claims, and the Venezuela Boundary. 



66 PREPAREDNESS 

of these disputes and of the bitterness of feeling which 
was created because of them, we have always found 
peaceful and effective means of settling them. Not so 
much, then, because of our geographical isolation, or our 
vast population and national resources, not even so much 
because of our peaceable intentions, may we look with 
reasonable equanimity on the future ; but because our his- 
tory in the past century and a quarter has proved again 
and again the efficacy of diplomacy and arbitration in 
settling our disputes with other nations. The fact that 
we have never yet been decapitated, in spite of a good 
many opportunities for it, is certainly no convincing ar- 
gument that we will surely be decapitated in the future. 

On the other hand, pacifists are reasonable enough to 
admit that because our Republic has heretofore taken the 
initiative in attacking its foreign foes, this is no convinc- 
ing argument that we shall never be attacked in the fu- 
ture. They must frankly, however sorrowfully, admit 
that all things are possible, — especially in a war-mad- 
dened world. They must recognize, with whatever sor- 
row or contempt, that many of our Republic's leaders 
have been thrown into a panic of fear by the " fate of 
China " and the " fate of Belgium," and that countless 
thousands of our fellow-citizens are following them like 
sheep to the slaughter. 

It is true that China is by hundreds of years the oldest 
of all living nations ; that it has outlived scores of na- 
tions that were far better " prepared against war " ; that 
it has succeeded on numerous occasions in conquering 
its conquerors by the simple and apparently beneficial 
process of absorption ; and that it is still in possession of 
a large degree of vigor, and gives good promise of re- 
taining its faculties and adding untold centuries of life 
to those which it has already enjoyed. It is true, also, 
that Belgium was " prepared against war " ; that its prep- 
arations were enormously larger, relatively to wealth and 
population, than were those of its invader; and that it 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 67 

would have been a physical impossibility for Belgium to 
have amassed enough troops and " defense " to have 
beaten off the attack of an empire tenfold as populous 
and with ten times its resources. If Belgium's " fate " 
has any lesson for the world it is that of the utter folly 
of so-called " preparedness against war," of armaments 
that are not and never can be " adequate " for purposes 
of successful defense. 

China is despised also by those nations which, after a 
generation of stupendous " preparedness," have grappled 
their chains to their souls and cherished the illusion that 
they are invincible. He who lives will see ; and in the 
end it is quite possible that some of the countries in the 
European War will be annihilated by the warfare which 
they brought upon themselves by putting their " pre- 
paredness " to the touch, and that Chinese students of 
a thousand years hence will read the story of their de- 
struction. 

But despite such considerations, it is only too apparent 
in our country and throughout the world to-day that 
fears have no ears, that panic cannot be stayed by rea- 
son. The Great War has laid its benumbing hand upon 
the minds of men, and subordinated their rational cour- 
age to the painful emotions which have surged up at 
the thought of shrapnel, gas, flames, airships, subma- 
rines and the tramp of armed millions. To meet the 
rush for " preparedness," then, it is necessary to con- 
cede that we may be called upon to engage in a defen- 
sive war. 

A "Defensive War" 

The term, a defensive war, or war for defense, has a 
simple and plausible sound, but it is by no means so sim- 
ple and convincing as it seems, especially in these days 
of complex international relations. For example, Bel- 
gium and France are regarded, by the world outside of 
Germany, as engaged in a defensive war, inasmuch as 



68 PREPAREDNESS 

they are engaged in endeavoring to repel actual invasion 
of their territory. But Germany insists that it, too, is 
fighting just as truly a war of defense, and that there is 
a difference merely in method and not in principle be- 
tween its invasion of Belgian and French territory, be- 
fore the Belgians, or the French and British, through 
Belgium, were able to invade German territory. Cer- 
tainly, the German contention would appear to be a logi- 
cal one that if you are going to fight at all, for defense 
as well as for aggression, you would be foolish to await 
an enemy's attack upon your territory. Ever since the 
days when the Roman Regulus " carried the war into 
Africa " against the Carthaginians, and Hannibal carried 
the war into Italy against the Romans, it has been ac- 
cepted as a fundamental precept of military science that 
on defense as well as attack the war must be carried at 
once to the enemy's territory and kept there at all haz- 
ards. Even in street-fighting, a primary maxim of de- 
fense is said to be to " strike the first blow and strike it 
hard." Mr. Roosevelt, when President, declared himself 
in favor only of a war of " defense " for the United 
States, but at the same time insisted that our coast forti- 
fications should be kept up in order that our navy might 
cut loose from port, seek out its opponent wherever he 
may be, and " hammer that opponent until he quits 
fighting." 

A war for the defense of our own continental territory, 
however, is not the only kind of a defensive war that we 
might be called upon to engage in. Our Constitution, 
the courts have decided, has not followed our flag to 
Porto Rico, the Canal Zone, Alaska, Hawaii, Samoa, or 
the Philippines; but our fleets and armies would as- 
suredly be sent to these distant points to engage in a 
" defensive " war. 

We have made a business in the United States of pro- 
ducing enormous wealth ; therefore, it is argued, it is 
a business proposition to build up a big army and navy 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 69 

to defend it on land and sea. The wealth of such cities 
as New York, Philadelphia, or Boston exceeds the value 
of the territory of some of our States ; hence a defensive 
war is even more necessary for it. England's navy has 
been often called " an indemnity bond behind every shil- 
ling's worth of property in the United Kingdom " ; let 
the United States adopt the same insurance. At the 
end of this war, the new President of the Navy League 
declares, the United States will possess practically all 
the world's gold and an immense commerce ; therefore, 
since treaties and moral obligations are nothing to na- 
tions that covet, let us prepare by means of a big army and 
navy to defend our treasures. " Why," another emi- 
nent prepareder inquires with finality, " be rich, aggres- 
sive, and undefended ? " 

But the wealth of this country about which the pre- 
pareders are chiefly anxious consists of the munitions 
plants and anthracite coal mines, ninety per cent, of 
which are located within a radius of i6o miles of New 
York. Since these, they say, are of immense value in 
themselves and constitute the chief ultimate means of 
the country's defense, they constitute Uncle Sam's solar 
plexus, and must be defended at all hazards. 

From the point of view of American territorial de- 
fense alone, our task would be the protection, against 
bombardment and invasion, of about 20,000 miles of 
frontier; while only the blue sky above is the limit of 
airship raids upon us. 

Again, if we are to continue to assume alone the bur- 
den of the Monroe Doctrine and to preserve territorial 
integrity and enforce popular government in the Latin- 
American Republics, our armaments are liable to be en- 
gaged in " defensive " warfare in every part of the 
Western Hemisphere.^ 

Again, the present war has illustrated, repeatedly and 

* Cf. the author's " Monroe Doctrine : National or Interna- 
tional?", New York, 1915. 



70 PREPAREDNESS 

in startling fashion, in what kind of a " defensive " war 
we might engage if we are determined to protect by our 
own strong arm the rights of neutral nations on the 
high seas. 

The protection of our own citizens, again, whether 
they are travelling on belligerent merchant ships, or in 
foreign lands, or are engaged in commerce, education, 
missionary endeavor, or what not, under the shadow of 
foreign flags, may involve us in a war, fought in any 
quarter of the globe, but nevertheless a war strictly for 
" defense." 

The demand for preparedness to defend our own fire- 
sides makes a strong appeal ; but the men and societies 
who are making this demand are precisely those who in- 
sist on the broad interpretation of the word defense. 
They find that a defensive war is necessary to prevent 
the Japanese from " Belgiumizing " the Philippines, 
Hawaii, or California ; to protect the Venezuelan fron- 
tier and all of South America against Great Britain, — 
after " Great Britain has embroiled us with her ally, 
Japan," — to prevent Germany from infringing upon the 
territorial integrity of Latin America; to champion the 
rights of neutral commerce and to protect neutral lives 
against belligerents on the high seas ; to avenge the 
massacre of American teachers in Turkey, or of Ameri- 
can missionaries in China; to protect the honor of the 
American flag in Mexico; to assert the honor, dignity 
and prestige of the United States as a world power in 
every port and country under the sun. 

It is entirely right and proper to defend all of these 
persons, properties and ideals, by the right and proper 
method ; but the American people must not be led into 
a programme of preparedness on the specious assumption 
that preparedness is merely for " defense," and ends 
with the continental bounds and territories of the United 
States. 

Colonel Roosevelt insist^ that our promises at The 



MOTIVES OF PREPAREDNESS 71 

Hague obligate us to defend Belgium and every other 
neutral state against violations of their neutrality. If 
the majority of our fellow-countrymen accept this inter- 
pretation of the conventions of The Hague, our armies 
will be called upon to engage in trench warfare the 
whole world over, and our navies will be summoned to 
fight, on all the Seven Seas, this kind of a defensive war. 
Captain Hobson insists that Great Britain and her ally, 
Japan, will some day disturb the balance of power in the 
Pacific, hand over China to the tender mercies of Japan, 
and destroy the open-door policy in the Orient. If the 
majority of our fellow-countrymen embrace this favorite 
scarecrow of the nautical statesman of Alabama, they 
may engage in a world-wide war to defend the mastery 
of the Pacific, the integrity of China, and the open door 
to American merchants. 



V 

PREPAREDNESS PROGRAMMES 

GRANTED, then, that we may be attacked by, or, 
in the name of a " defensive war," may attack, 
a ziciorious Germany, Japan or Great Britain,^ 
what should be the extent of our " preparedness," our 
" adequacy," our " efficiency " ? In such a contingency, 
we should be called upon to fight, not a Mexico or a 
Spain, but a first-class military and naval power; to 
fight it possibly on any part of the earth's surface; and 
to fight it in Twentieth Century warfare. These funda- 
mental considerations have evidently not been permitted 
to control the programmes for " efficient preparedness " 
and " adequate armaments " which are now being so vo- 
ciferously advocated. 

The air is filled and our ears are deafened by the par- 
rot-like demand for " preparedness," " adequate arma- 
ments," " means of defense," etc., etc., while the vast 
majority of those making the demand have no more con- 
ception of the real meaning of these terms, or of the 
policy they call for, than a parrot has of the English lan- 
guage. Sometimes they can add to their vocabulary the 
words, " Swiss System," " Australian Plan," " New Zea- 
land's Method " ; but usually these, in themselves and in 
their application to American conditions, are mere shib- 
boleths. 

THE WILDLY EXTRAVAGANT AND INDEFINITE PROGRAMMES 

Most of the preparedness programmes are character- 
ized by vagueness, elasticity, extravagance. Anything 

^ It is to be presumed that even the most fearful prepareders 
would not anticipate an attack from the defeated party in the 
present war. 

72 



PREPAREDNESS PROGRAMMES 73 

and everything which gives promise of increasing our 
armaments is eagerly welcomed by them. Nothing is too 
large to ask for; nothing is too small to take. The only 
definite thing about them is that the democratic inch ac- 
quired shall be converted as speedily as possible into the 
most numerous of militaristic ells. 

How big must our stick be ? How large are " ade- 
quate " armaments ? To this question from the man in 
the street, who has to foot the bill, the bellumist replies : 
What an absurd and unpatriotic question! We do not 
know, of course, and cannot know precisely what we are 
trying to " equal " in our frantic pursuit of " adequacy " ; 
for the sufficiency of numbers and the efficiency of fight- 
ers is as uncertain and incalculable as the shifting sands 
of the sea. How can we ever know definitely what are 
" adequate armaments," when projectiles irresistible this 
morning and defenses invincible at noon will probably 
be antiquated before the sunset of today or the dawn of 
tomorrow ? But this we do know : we can never have too 
much of a good thing. Our army and navy and air 
fleet must be rolled up larger and ever larger until, if 
" adequacy " require it, every ounce of toiling muscle, 
every fruit of human industry, and every gift of the 
harnessed forces of mother nature are rolled up in them. 

Then " adequate " for what or whom shall our arma- 
ments be? Let me know this, at least, begs the taxpay- 
ing man in the street. Now there, replies the bellumist, 
I can furnish food for your sentiment, imagination and 
fears, even though I may not satisfy your reason. Arm- 
aments must be adequate to defend the national honor, 
to maintain the prestige of the Republic against the 
effete monarchies of Europe, to assert the dignity of the 
United States as one of the world's " Great Powers," to 
flaunt the flag in every harbor, to let the Eagle scream 
across every ocean, to protect Uncle Sam against a pos- 
sible world in arms, and to save the Union against a 
hyphenated Armageddon ! Adequate for what or whom? 



74 PREPAREDNESS 

Why, for anything or anyone, for everything and all the 
world! Who but the pusillanimous or the treasonable 
would measure words or seek for definiteness when Old 
Glory is at stake ? 

THE INADEQUATE PROGRAMMES 

On the other hand, there are numerous programmes 
for " adequate " armaments which are characterized by 
their utter madequacy when measured by the funda- 
mental necessities of " defensive " warfare, of warfare 
with a first-class military and naval power, and of war- 
fare by means of Twentieth Century devices. Their ad- 
vocates, who demand the defense of American territory, 
the Monroe Doctrine, the rights and privileges of neu- 
trals and of humanity in general, give a striking illustra- 
tion of " thundering in the preface and murmuring in 
the text," or of " first shaking their fist and then shak- 
ing their finger." 

The American Security League solves the problem oflf- 
hand by demanding an increase of lOO per cent, in ex- 
penditures on our navy (or $300,000,000 per annum), 
and 50 per cent, on our army (or $150,000,000 per an- 
num). The Navy League follows the same line of least 
resistance or of no thinking, and demands an increase 
in naval expenditures to $500,000,000 per annum, and 
in military expenditures to $250,000,000 per annum, 
hoping thereby to support an army of one million men. 
Where the money for this increase is to come from, 
neither league deigns to explain, except that they both 
lean towards the issuing of bonds. Since the current 
deficit runs high into the millions, and we have already 
resorted to the collection of an income tax in time of 
peace to enable us to expend two-thirds of our revenues 
for military and pension purposes, the borrowing of 
money for the purpose of carrying out the military and 
naval programmes of these leagues will probably not 



PREPAREDNESS PROGRAMMES 75 

commend itself to the sound common sense of the Ameri- 
can public. 

A wholesome respect for this characteristic of the 
American public as a whole and in the long run, has un- 
doubtedly helped some of the prepareders to moderate 
their transports when they begin to express in concrete 
terms their glittering generalities in favor of prepared- 
ness. 

Even the arch-prepareder par excellence becomes very 
wary and moderate when he descends from his blithe 
and irresponsible pursuit of " the pacificists," and is re- 
quested to " get down to brass tacks " in advocating his 
policy of military defense and the financial basis of it. 
Give us a mobile army of 120,000, he says; that is, let 
us increase our present mobile force about fourfold. 
Then, give us a system of universal, compulsory train- 
ing for our boys during the last few years of their edu- 
cation in the public schools, sending them afterwards for 
four or six months' training with the regular army, and 
then keep them in trim by ten days' training per annum 
for a period of ten years. As for solving the extremely 
complex problem of providing, in the face of the present 
revolution in naval and other warfare, an " adequate " 
navy, this erstwhile redoubtable gentleman gives us 
a striking illustration of the familiar policy of " letting 
George do it." "The Navy," he tells us, "must pri- 
marily be used for ofiFensive purposes. Forts, not the 
navy, are to be used for defense. The only permanently 
efficient type of defensive is the offensive." With this 
conception of " defense " in mind, he states the naval 
problem as follows : " Our naval problem, therefore, is 
primarily to provide for the protection of our own 
coasts and for the protection and policing of Hawaii, 
Alaska and the Panama Canal and its approaches. This 
offers a definite problem which should be solved by our 
naval men." 

What a decline and fall have we here ! What a char- 



76 PREPAREDNESS 

acteristic laboring of the mountain that brings forth the 
mouse ! 

Our other ex-president appeals for " reasonable prep- 
aration," and gives his definition of that as follows: 
*' First, an increase of our navy tonnage as rapidly as 
possible by 30 per cent, and an immediate increase of 
the personnel of the navy by nearly 20,000 sailors and 
900 officers. Second, an increase in ammunition for our 
great coast defense guns, the making of a few 16-inch 
guns, and the defense of the Chesapeake at Cape Henry. 
In addition, an increase of 10,000 trained coast artillery- 
men and 600 officers to man the coast defense properly. 
Third, an increase in our regular mobile army of 50,000 
troops and a quadrupling of the supply of educated mili- 
tary officers. We should adopt a reduced term of en- 
listment, with inducement to the formation of a reserve 
of trained men." 

The ex-president of a New England university advo- 
cates the improvement, without increase, of the army 
and navy " in the light of the present war." He is 
skeptical, however, as to the wisdom of the plan to re- 
duce the term of enlistment in the army, as proposed by 
General Wood, to one year or even six months, so as to 
graduate a large number of men each year from the 
regular army into the reserve force ; and prefers the 
Swiss system of universal enlistment and a training of 
a few weeks during each of a term of years. 

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Military 
Affairs proposes an increase in the army by 25,000, or 
to 125,000 in all. The chairman of the House Committee 
on Military Affairs is also for "' a moderate increase " in 
the regular army, and also for the creation of a reserve 
force, — provided the latter is financially practicable, of 
which he is doubtful. 

The Sef^retary of War advocates " reasonable pre- 
paredness ' and inclines to the belief that " a well-trained 
body of four to five hundred thousand citizen-soldiers im- 



PREPAREDNESS PROGRAMMES 77 

mediately available, together with our permanent force 
in the regular and militia establishments, will give us 
reasonable guarantee against hostile invasion of our ter- 
ritory. In reaching this conclusion, due weight must 
be given to the cooperation of our navy and our land 
coast defenses." As for the regular army, the Secretary 
thinks that it will suffice to fill up the ranks in the exist- 
ing organization by the addition of 25,900 men; and he 
is optimistic enough to believe that this will require but 
few or no additional officers and only 33 per cent, addi- 
tional cost per capita. 

The Secretary of the Navy is evidently reluctant and 
non-committal on the question of " preparedness." He 
has been prodded and lampooned to an extraordinary 
extent, but has evidently made up his mind to go no 
farther than his official position strictly requires him to 
go. The plans which he is preparing, in cooperation with 
the General Board of the Navy, will be presented in full 
at the next session of Congress, and are briefly discussed 
in a later portion of this treatise under the topic of the 
Navy. They are concerned chiefly with increased speed, 
submarines and aircraft. 

The President has had his hands full with the ex- 
tremely difficult task of insuring respect for neutral rights 
by means of diplomatic and legal measures, and at the 
same time of preventing the " prepareders "' from push- 
ing him and the country into a resort to warfare to se- 
cure this respect. He refused point-blank to summon 
an extra session of Congress to consider " preparedness," 
but yielded to the prevalent clamor so far as to call for 
reports from the Secretaries of War and the Navy on 
the present actual condition of the national defenses. 
Upon the basis of these reports he is now endeavoring 
to make up his mind as to what measures, if any, he will 
bring to the attention of Congress in its next regular 
session. Unfortunately, the military and naval experts 
are working at cross purposes, and the President has 



78 PREPAREDNESS 

been confronted thus far with inadequate, extravagant, 
or conflicting " expert testimony." Unfortunately, also, 
for a scientific answer to the problem of '' preparedness,' 
this problem can be illuminated only to a negligible ex- 
tent by the military experience of the past ; and present 
preparedness has but little relation to future needs ; while 
the whole art of warfare has been so thoroughly revolu- 
tionized in this present war as to warrant but small re- 
liance upon military science a-, it has developed under 
wholly different conditions. 

It is safe to assume that tlit President will do his ut- 
most to keep down to a minit-uim the manifold plans to 
increase our armaments ; for he must realize that what- 
ever Congress does will be done merely as a concession 
to popular clamor, or as an assuagement of the temporary 
popular anxiety that has been so cleverly worked up by 
exploiting the " frightfulness " abroad. The President 
must realize also that these plans for " preparedness," 
even the wildest and most extravagant of them, are as 
far from real " adequacy " as is — Tipperary. The pal- 
pable confession of the prepareders that " we don't know 
where we are going, but we are on the way," can as- 
suredly make but small appeal to a man of the President's 
mental calibre. 

Let us compare the obvious needs of a genuine emer- 
gency with the current programmes for meeting them. 
The meaning of " defensive " warfare in our time, has 
already been indicated.^ A war with a first-class military 
and naval power, waged with Twentieth Century de- 
vices, would find its theater on the land and under it, on 
the seas and under them, and in and from the air. 

^ Infra, p. 67. 



VI 

PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER THE LAND 

THE programme in this field deals with the stand- 
ing army; the reserves; the militia; the Conti- 
nentals ; " trained " schoolboys, college youths 
and business men ; guns and ammunition ; entrenchments ; 
bases of operations ; and fortresses along the frontiers. 

A, THE REGULAR ARMY 

A standing army of professional soldiers is regarded 
by genuine military experts, like Von Hindenburg and 
Kitchener, as the only really effective " arm of the serv- 
ice." They look with hearty contempt upon " uniformed 
mobs who pretend to be soldiers." The military experts 
of our own country point with pride to the work accom- 
plished by the regular soldiers in our various wars, and 
view with alarm the American tendency to rely upon 
volunteers. They declare that our government has been 
guilty of murder, from the Revolutionary to the Span- 
ish War, inclusive, in sending out untrained troops to 
be shot down by professionals. Hence, to be adequately 
prepared, is to be equipped with a professional army. 

How Large Should it Be? 

How many regular soldiers have we? How many do 
we need? Our army numbers at the present time about 
90,000 men. Many of these are on garrison duty or in 
our island possessions. In the Philippines, Hawaii and 
Alaska, we have about 18,000 men ; Japan, we are told, 
would attack with not less than 100,000. There are 
1,200 miles of coast on the Pacific to defend. In the 
whole United States, we have an effective field force of 

79 



80 PREPAREDNESS 

less than 30,000 men; less than 10,000 of these are at 
their home or permanent stations, the rest being scat- 
tered along the Mexican border, in Colorado, etc., at 
fifty-two widely separated points. Even Mexico, we are 
told, has 85,000 effective troops ! 

Shall we double the number of our mobile force, and 
make it 60,000? Shall we quadruple it, and make it 120,- 
000? Why, in the present war in Europe they are cap- 
turing 120,000 men in a single battle. In a single Rus- 
sian campaign, the Germans carried off more than 200,- 
000 prisoners ; before the first eight months of the war 
had elapsed, they held 812,000 prisoners on German soil; 
and by the end of the first sixteen months they hold 
more than 3,000,000. This is not capture ; it is immigra- 
tion. Sickness alone would dispose of our 120,000 men. 
For example, during the first six months of the Galli- 
poli campaign, 78,000 British soldiers were returned to 
their homes because of illness. Thanks to modern medi- 
cal, surgical and sanitary skill, the number of men car- 
ried off by disease is now very small as compared with 
the number of killed and wounded, whereas in former 
times the reverse of this was true. As to the number of 
killed and wounded in the present war: the Allies have 
lost 6,700,000 men, 5,600,000 of whom were killed or 
permanently disabled ; the Austro-Germans have lost 6,- 
350,000 men, at least 5,000,000 being killed or perma- 
nently disabled. More than 2,000,000 men are reported 
as simply missing! 

Evidently, we can no longer think in terms of tens of 
thousands ; or even of hundreds of thousands ; the war- 
fare of our time is carried on by millions. In our Span- 
ish War, seventeen years ago, we had a total loss by 
death of 2,910, and 2,604 o^ these died from disease. In 
our Civil War of a half-century ago, our largest number 
of Union soldiers was 1,050,000 men, all of whom but 50,- 
000 were volunteers or drafted men. The Austro-Ger- 
mans have lost six times as many ; while the men under 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 81 

arms in Europe number more than a dozen times as 
many. An attache representing the United States army 
in Europe declares that there they have more than 600 
well-trained army corps, while we have less than one ! 

Even before the great war began, Germany and its 
allies had a peace strength of 1,400,0x50 trained soldiers, 
and a war strength of 7,200,000 trained soldiers; while 
Great Britain and its allies had a peace strength of 2,- 
250,000 trained soldiers, and a war strength of 9,660,000 
trained soldiers. 

In the face of these stupendous facts, the recent Chief- 
of-Staff of our army advocated 205,000 men in our 
standing army and a total available force (militia and re- 
serves included) of 800,000 men. This would mean an 
increase of 100 per cent, in the army and 400 per cent, 
in the militia. Would it be truly adequate? 

The present Secretary of War proposes to increase 
the regular army to 143,843 men, thus giving to the 
island possessions about 49,000, and to the continental 
United States about 95,000 men ; to these he would add 
a " Federal citizen army " of 400,000 " Continentals," 
and retain the 120,000 existing State militia. Will this 
increase of about 30 per cent, in the regular army and 
about 450 per cent, in the " citizen soldiery " be truly 
adequate? 

The General Staff of the Army advocates 250,000 reg- 
ular troops permanently with the colors, a reserve of 
300,000 fully trained men, and a citizen force of 1,000,000 
men with at least one year's training. The National Se- 
curity League, with much and ardent alacrity, has 
changed its original demand for 1,000,000 men to i,- 
550,000 men, to meet the General Staff's view, and 
other exponents of the prevalent hysteria have " gone 
them more than one better." For example, a Philadel- 
phia clergyman, preaching a Thanksgiving Day sermon 
in the City of Brotherly Love, not long ago, expressed 
such gratitude for America's exemption from the great 



8S PREPAREDNESS 

war in Europe that he demanded the immediate increase 
of our standing army to five millions of men, so that it 
might be adequate to cope with European armies of equal 
size in case they should direct their conquering footsteps 
towards our shores ! 

Where Shall It Come From? 

Now, in considering such programmes for the acquisi- 
tion of adequate preparedness, we are confronted by at 
least two questions of a very practical kind, namely, 
Where are these millions of professional soldiers to come 
from, and, What would be their cost? It is true that the 
United States, with a total population of about one hun- 
dred millions, has twenty millions of men between the 
ages of eighteen and forty-four years, and seventeen mil- 
lions of these might be converted into real soldiers. But 
where are these millions of men to come from? Are they 
to be taken from the productive paths of American in- 
dustry, and the women be permitted to do their work? 
That is the way they solve the problem in the Old World ; 
but it was to escape precisely that sort of thing that our 
fathers came to these non-militaristic shores. 

What Would It Cost? 

As to the cost, — in dollars, — of such a policy, it may 
be estimated from the fact that we expend upon our 
army establishment the sum of $1,314 per soldier per an- 
num. All things come high in the United States. The 
French, German and British armies cost $291, $306, and 
$378 per soldier per annum, respectively. The German 
army, which was ten times as numerous as ours before 
the war, cost only twice as much per annum. Belgium, 
with an army four times as large as ours, maintained 
it at one-eighth the cost. 

We could probably apply to our army the economy of 
large production, if it were greatly increased in size, 
and might reduce its cost to say $1,000 per man. But the 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 83 

bill would still be decidedly heavy. For example, an 
army of 5,000,000 would cost at this lowered rate the 
sum of $5,000,000,000 per annum, — or the yearly price 
of thirteen Panama Canals. An army commensurate 
with the ideas of our General Staff would cost $250,- 
000,000 per annum, exclusive of the cost of 300,000 fully 
trained reserves, and 1,000,000 men with one year's 
training ; that is to say that in every presidential adminis- 
tration we would expend upon our army the sum total 
of our entire national debt, which we have been strug- 
gling for the last half-century to wipe out! 

Even the more moderate plan of the present adminis- 
tration would require the expenditure on the army of 
one billion dollars within the next five years. And yet, 
in spite of such enormous expenditures, the military ex- 
perts insist that our army would be absolutely unpre- 
pared to cope with a first-class enemy, — a victorious Ger- 
many, for example, — in Twentieth Century warfare. 

We have increased the size of our army fourfold 
within the past sixteen years, and have spent upon it five 
times as mwch, proportionately, as Germany has spent 
upon its superb fighting machine. We are now urged to 
increase our army within the next five years by anywhere 
from 1,500 to 5,000 per cent., with the emphatic assur- 
ance that even then it would not be truly adequate to 
cope with its most powerful enemy. 

What, then, is an " adequate " army and an adequate 
expenditure? Our military experts do not, and cannot, 
know; and they dare not tell us, publicly at least, what is 
their nearest guess. All of our historic traditions, na- 
tional prejudices and democratic ideals are arrayed solidly 
against large standing armies as the prime source and 
chief support of tyranny. Never yet, thank God, has 
there been room beneath the Stars and Stripes for the 
mailed fist, the spurred heel, the war lords and serried 
ranks of the Old World's military system. 



84 PREPAREDNESS 



B. THE RESERVES 

The American antipathy to a large standing army has 
been observed, even to the extent of neglecting a reserve 
army composed of former professional soldiers. 

Our Unpreparedness 

It is true that there has been some feeble legislation 
designed to bind former professionals to the colors and 
make them available in time of war. But so feeble has 
this legislation been, that it has resulted in building up a 
reserve army of just sixteen men! A congressman es- 
pecially prominent in the campaign for preparedness, 
joyfully seized upon this pregnant fact and attempted to 
rub it in to the American consciousness by giving a much 
advertised dinner at his home in Washington for " the 
entire reserve army of the United States of America." 
Eight of the sixteen soldiers accepted his invitation and 
partook of his hospitality. Even the rumor that at this 
dinner grape- juice was to be eschewed and Gambrinus 
was to sit next to Mars, was not sufficient to mobilize 
two members of the reserve army from California and 
Porto Rico and six others from Indiana, Pennsylvania 
and New York. 

Let us try to imagine our reserve army of sixteen men 
called out to defend this great Republic from invasion by 
the 4,430,000 reserves of Germany, the 3,300,000 reserves 
of Russia, the 1,610,000 reserves of Austria-Hungary, 
the 950,000 reserves of Japan, or even the 476,500 re- 
serves of Great Britain ! Is there any wonder that we 
are trembling with fear in our boots? And the worst 
may yet be to come. For, although these possible ene- 
mies of ours are killing off their soldiers (reserves and 
otherwise) at a rather lively rate at present, still the 
victors in the war will probably have a few hundreds of 
thousands or even millions left, and these will be not 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 85 

merely reserves trained in time of peace, but veterans 
seasoned in the greatest, most scientific war in history. 



How Many Do We Need? 

What is being done to meet such unparalleled emer- 
gencies? Well, the present Secretary of War proposes 
that the term of service of the regular soldiers be re- 
duced from four years with the colors to two years with 
the colors, and that, the term of enlistment being fixed at 
six years, the other four years be spent in the reserves ; 
also that the Continentals,^ after serving two months 
yearly for three years with the colors, be for three more 
years in reserve. By this process of graduation from 
the regular army and the Continentals, the reserves are 
expected to increase at the rate of 100,000 a year. But 
this increase would not commence until the end of three 
years after the adoption of the plan ; and meanwhile, and 
for many a year afterwards, we should be a long, long 
way, in the item of reserves, behind Germany, Russia, 
Austria-Hungary, or Japan. 

As to the cost of this wholly inadequate plan, some idea 
may be gained from the fact that the reserves are to be 
not only subject to call for war service, but also required 
to attend manoeuvers, — for which, of course, they will be 
paid ; and from the further proposal that, in order to pro- 
mote enlistment in the regular army, the recruit who has 
shown the required proficiency may, after one year's 
service with the colors, pass to the reserves ; thus remain- 
ing for six years of his enlistment on the reserve force 
and the pay-roll as well. 

It is just such proposals in the preparedness pro- 
grammes that necessitate the demand, even from our 
relatively moderate Secretary of War, for more than one 
billion dollars to be spent on our army during the next 
four years. Surely Ben Franklin would say: We are 

* See page 89. 



86 PREPAREDNESS 

spending too much for our whistle, — especially for a 
whistle than won't blow. 



C. THE STATE MILITIA, OR NATIONAL GUARD 

Yielding to American opposition to " adequate " stand- 
ing armies, our military experts have sought to procure 
adequacy by other means. The most familiar of these 
means has been the creation and maintenance of a body 
of militia in each of the States. This has been regarded 
by many civilians as the chief bulwark of our nation 
against domestic treason and foreign foes. But it is now 
declared to be only a broken reed. 

Its Defects 

First, it has been discovered that even the men who 
have joined the militia do not take seriously their duty 
to become prepared. Of the 120,000 militiamen enrolled, 
only 50,000 appeared last year for practice at the rifle- 
ranges ; 47 per cent, of those armed with a rifle did not 
appear at the ranges; 31,000 did not go to the annual en- 
campment ; 23,000 did not even appear for inspection. 

Again, the number enrolled is held to be wholly in- 
sufficient. The recent Chief-of-Staflf advocated the in- 
crease of their number by 500 per cent., or to 600,000 
men. But how shall this be done ? It is found that there 
is a wide-spread aversion to the militia, among laboring 
men, for the reason that it has been or may be used 
against laborers in their disputes with employers. Em- 
ployers, on the other hand, are opposed to releasing their 
employes for ten days or two weeks of training, not only 
because of economic reasons, but also because of their 
distrust of " tin soldiering." Either enlist in the regular 
army and become a real soldier, they say to their laborers, 
or stick to your job and don't try to become half-soldier 
and half -workman. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 87 

Proposed Remedies 

During the present preparedness campaign, pressure 
has been brought to bear upon employers in behalf of 
the militia, and some of them have offered inducements 
to their workmen to join the militia. But even the en- 
thusiasts have lost all hope of largely increasing the 
militia in this vi^ay, and have come to the conclusion that 
" ihere is just one way to get men down to the hard work 
necessary to become trained militiamen, and that is by 
paying them." 

A small payment, it is generally recognized, will not be 
sufficient largely to increase the number of militiamen 
and their devotion to training. For example, the Gov- 
ernor of Illinois, at the Governors' Conference held re- 
cently in Boston, denounced as a beggarly pittance the 
$15 a year paid to militiamen, and declared that "if a 
militiaman were paid one dollar for every night spent 
in military training in his drill hall or arsenal, with a 
provision that he would receive no compensation unless 
he attended at least forty nights during the year, I be- 
lieve that instead of 120,000 militiamen we would have 
1,500,000 or 2,000,000." 

This programme, which would carry with it an annual 
minimum expenditure for wages alone of from $60,000,- 
000 to $80,000,000, evidently does not appeal to the 
present national administration. But the latter does pro- 
pose to increase the Federal appropriation to the State 
militia, which is now $6,244,214 per annum, to $10,000,- 
000 for next year. If this does not sufifice, a movement 
is already on foot to increase it to $30,000,000 per an- 
num. There is evidently a very inviting field of activity 
here for the congressional " pork-barrel." When it is 
recalled that pensions for the men who participated, — 
some of them in most moderate degree, — in our past 
wars, have increased to the handsome sum of $164,000,- 
000 per annum, the question may well be urged: Why 



88 PREPAREDNESS 

not do as well or better for the men who will be called 
upon to defend us in our future wars? Better a live sol- 
dier who can fight than a wounded one, or the widow 
of one, who has fought some half-century ago. So runs 
the plausible argument, — direct to the Federal treasury. 

As another incentive to enlistment in the militia, it has 
recently been provided that in case of war the militia of 
the States may enlist, individually or en masse, in the 
Federal army and be received on a plane of entire equal- 
ity, all the rights and privileges of the army being ex- 
tended to equivalent ranks in the militia. 

In return for this Federal recognition and financial 
aid, it is proposed that Federal control of the State mili- 
tia shall be greatly strengthened, both in the direction of 
equipment, training and command. 

Shall It Be Discarded^ 

The well-founded American antipathy to too central- 
ized and militaristic a national government appears to 
have been lost in the prevalent struggle for " prepared- 
ness." The right and duty of the States and the centrali- 
zation of government in the nation have been subordi- 
nated to the demand for " efficiency." In consonance 
with this demand, it is even urged from many quarters 
that the militia should be taken entirely out of the hands 
of the States and handed over to the government at 
Washington. " In the early history of our country," it is 
argued, *' when means of communication of all kinds 
were extremely slow, there may have been some excuse 
for a National Guard or State Militia as provided for in 
the Constitution. In these days of quick transportation, 
the forty-eight diflferent varieties of militia should be 
replaced by a single national army such as is absolutely 
necessary in every country for modern defensive mili- 
tary operations." 

The State militia, it is urged, has proved wholly inade- 
quate in every war. A large proportion of it has refused 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 89 

to enlist. In the Civil War, both North and South were 
obliged to offer bounties and to resort to conscription. 
In the Spanish War, sixteen States fell short of 
furnishing their quota of troops. The militiamen who 
have enlisted acted like raw recruits. In the War of 
1812, they ran away from almost every battle; and 1,500 
British soldiers, weakened by a long sea voyage, landed 
in Maryland, drove off 5,000 militiamen almost without 
striking a blow, and burned the capital city of the United 
States. In the Civil War, the military experts decided 
that about two years of severe training were required 
" to lick the citizen soldiers into shape." 

Rendered practically useless by such glaring and in- 
herent defects, why has the State militia been tolerated 
at all? A congressman from Massachusetts gives one 
reason for it, as follows: "I have sat [in Congress] 
like a coward for twelve years in silence because I was 
afraid to tell the 700 men in the National Guard in my 
district that I did not think they were an adequate pro- 
tection." 

The fact that it has been affectionately regarded as a 
happy medium between militarism and " unprepared- 
ness " is another reason why it has not been discarded ; 
and there are various others still. But the expert verdict 
pronounced upon it is : For more than a century we 
have tried and experimented with a militia system that 
has proved a burden in times of peace and a humiliating 
failure in times of war. To the lions with it ! Adequate 
preparedness is not to be found along this line. 

D. THE CONTINENTALS 

While the present administration has refused to yield 
to the demand of the radical prepareders for the aboli- 
tion of the State militia, and has increased the annual 
appropriation for it by 60 per cent., it has planned, never- 
theless, to supplement it by a Federal force, to which the 
historically dear and honored name of the " Continen- 



90 PREPAREDNESS 

tals " has been applied. This " Federal Citizen Army," 
as it is also called, is to consist of 400,000 men, enlisted 
at the rate of 133,000 a year for three years. The re- 
cruits would enlist for six-year terms, but would be re- 
quired to report for training only for short periods, prob- 
ably two months each year, for the first three years, and 
during the remaining three years would be furloughed 
subject to call to the colors in time of war. 

Where Will They Come From? 

In launching its plan for Continentals, the War De- 
partment has made the following appeal : " It seems 
desirable to say that if those who are the employers of 
the young men of the country cannot by reason of age 
or situation in life give their personal service, they can 
do that which will be equally useful by encouraging in 
every way the participation of those in their employ in 
the plan of national defense. If they would so arrange 
their business that a certain proportion of those whom 
they engage could undertake this national service without 
sacrificing their personal interests, those who did this 
thing would be acting in the most public-spirited and 
patriotic manner possible." 

At first sight, it might appear probable that there is 
sufficient " patriotism " among the employers and labor- 
ers of the country to enable Uncle Sam to procure 400,- 
000 Continentals from a population of 100,000,000. 
Switzerland, with a population of only 4,000,000, has 
raised an army of 500,000 in this way. 

Opposition to Them 

But even before this plan is fairly launched, opposition 
to it has sprung up on various sides. It is urged, on 
the one hand, that there is a grave economic problem 
involved, both in the readjustment of wages and hours 
of emj)loyment, during the proposed two months of mili- 
tary training each year for three years ; and in the raising 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 91 

of the very large revenue which would be required to 
pay, equip, maintain and insure the 400,000 Continentals 
against sickness, accident or death while in service. 

Again, the political aspect of the plan of increasing 
the Federal military forces by so large a number of men 
at the expense of the militia, or at the expense of the 
potential military power of the States, has been gravely 
urged as a menace to a well-balanced Federal and State 
government. 

The State militiamen are naturally inquiring: Why 
should the State militia with its long history be virtually 
superseded by this new-fangled military force? And 
how can 400,000 volunteers be recruited for this new 
force within three years, when the State militia by most 
strenuous effort and varied devices has been able to 
recruit in many years only 120,000? 

Again, from the side of the regular army comes the 
following criticism of the Continentals : 

** The administration's reorganization plan begins at 
the wrong end. Instead of building up the regular army 
it merely aims at tripling or quadrupling our supply of 
untrained troops. It creates a great body of militia 
officers and thus dilutes the efficiency of the officers' corps 
as a whole. It sets up a demoralizing distinction between 
regulars and Continentals. If the Continentals are called 
into being we shall have two national armies, unlike in 
quality, training and spirit, and therefore exceedingly 
difficult to amalgamate in case of need. We shall simply 
follow out to another failure the disastrous American 
tradition of reliance on second and third class troops 
which has caused such a waste of blood and treasure 
in all our wars." 

Would They Be Adequate f 

Such criticism as this raises the question: Would 
the Continentals be truly efficient and adequate? 
Learning to wear a uniform, to keep step on a march, 



92 PREPAREDNESS 

to carry and shoot with a rifle and to carry a kit, or, if 
in the cavalry, to ride a horse and draw a sabre; such 
is the popular conception of the military art. Of 
course any American can learn it, " in a jiffy," and 
be able to whip any half-dozen foreigners into the bar- 
gain. 

But the General Staff of the army takes a very dif- 
ferent view of this matter, — even in the United States, — 
and has inaugurated a campaign against such " squirrel- 
gun Yankeeism." To prevent men from becoming a 
hindrance to an army and to teach them to be of real 
military service, the General Staff estimates that not 
the two months' training proposed, but at least one 
year's solid training is absolutely necessary. It has out- 
lined, month by month, the training required for hand- 
ling and caring for the soldier's body and for his 
weapons, drill in battalions and regiments, camp life, 
patrolling, scouting, marching, intrenching, covering, as- 
saulting tactics, teamwork in brigades and divisions, 
war-games, forced marches, signaling, bridge-building, 
erecting obstructions, rifle-sighting, range-finding, ma- 
chine-gun practice, and a thousand and one other details 
of modem military efficiency. 

The Swiss system, which seems to have inspired the 
plan for our Continentals, provides that the military 
training of the citizen soldiers shall begin with their 
early school life and include athletic exercises, rifle prac- 
tice and two or three months' drill in camp. This regime 
lasts until the age of twenty-one ; for eleven years after 
this, eleven days each years are devoted to training for 
service in the first line of battle ; twelve years more are 
served in the first reserve, or landwehr, with eleven 
days' training in alternate years; four years more, — to 
the age of forty-eight, — are served in the second reserve, 
or landsturm, when the training is only occasional. The 
efficiency of this system has never been tried in war, and 
from the point of view of training it may well be ques- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 9S 

tioned whether it could withstand such an ordeal as Bel- 
gium has been called upon to face. 

Our military experts declare that six months, at the 
smallest possible estimate, would be required to equip, 
organize and make entirely ready for a really great emer- 
gency even such partially trained men. And in modem 
warfare, they insist, an enemy genuinely prepared, would 
progress so far on the way to success, in these six 
months, that his unprepared or partially prepared antago- 
nist might as well concede defeat without a contest. 

From the point of view of numbers, also, the question 
may well be raised as to the Continentals' adequacy. 
The Swiss system is proportionately far and away ahead 
of the American Continentals. On the Swiss basis, the 
latter should number 12,500,000 instead of the proposed 
400,000! It is not strange, then, that the plan for the 
Continentals is condemned as wholly inadequate, or that 
the demand is being loudly made that we should increase 
this number, as well as that of the regular army, well 
into the millions. The Governor of Illinois, for exam- 
ple, declared in the recent Governors' Conference in 
Boston that " to rely upon the regular army of 100,000 
and a militia of 120,000 men in case of war with a first- 
class power, would be an act of supreme folly. The 
citizen-soldiery must be reorganized, regenerated and 
enormously increased. There should he at least a body 
of citizen-soldiery of 2,000,000 men." 

E. THE SOURCES OF SUPPLY 

In the course of this analysis of the regular army, the 
reserves, the State militia and the Continentals, the ques- 
tion has arisen in connection with each of them, Whence 
will the necessary increase come ? 

The Supineness of American Adults 

Captain Mahan, a leading advocate for many years 
of " adequate armaments," voiced the discouragement 



94 PREPAREDNESS 

of the prepareders as to inducing hundreds of thousands 
or millions of busy Americans to submit to military 
training in earnest. On this point, he said : " A peace- 
ful, gain-loving nation is not far-sighted, and far-sighted- 
ness is needed for adequate military preparation, espe- 
cially in these days." 

Hence, our far-sighted military experts, almost de- 
spairing of enlisting in their cause large numbers of 
adult Americans, who are absorbed in the task of per- 
forming the world's real work, have directed their most 
solicitous gaze upon the rising generation, in order that 
from it they may redress the deficiencies of the present 
one. 

But they have not entirely despaired of the adults and, 
aided by the fear engendered on this side of the Atlantic 
by the war in Europe, they are doing their utmost to 
corral as many as possible of the 20,000,000 American 
males between the ages of eighteen and forty-four into 
the army. Under the stimulus of the Great War, a por- 
tion of the public is now responding eagerly to the baits 
which Major-General Wood in particular has held out 
so skilfully and enticingly to it. Although presumably 
appointed to attend to his own business of keeping in 
order and efficiency the army that the American people, 
through their representatives in Congress, have estab- 
lished. General Wood's chief activity for many months has 
been the capitalization of public panic for the increase 
of that army by hook or by crook. 

The Army and Navy Journal has ably seconded Gen- 
eral Wood's motions, and, to start the ball rolling, has 
called for the immediate mobilization of a volunteer 
army of 1,000,000 men, "not for the purpose of making 
war, but to avoid war by preserving neutrality and main- 
taining our honor and dignity." This, it argues, could 
not be considered in any quarter an act of war, because 
it would be no more than a precautionary movement in 
kind with that instituted by every neutral nation of im- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 95 

portance on the globe; Switzerland, Holland and Italy, 
it continues, have all mobilized and strengthened their 
defense plans, and nobody even suspected the two coun- 
tries first named of having belligerent designs. 



Possible Adult Sources 

Compulsory military training and conscription are not 
yet seriously advocated, in public, at least, by many 
leading Americans. There are some among us who are 
so recreant to the traditions and ideals of our Republic, 
and so determined on " adequate " preparedness, that 
they are advocating even this reactionary step; while 
the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, emulating the chief 
bearer of his family name, has publicly advised the 
American people to " look carefully into the system of 
compulsory military training which the labor party in 
Australia has ordained for the Australians." The terror 
of the " Yellow Peril " has forced this system upon 
Australia, and it may yet achieve much in America. 

Meanwhile, varied kinds of pressure and inducements 
are being brought to bear upon laborers and employers. 

One typical proposal is to establish winter training 
camps for a half-million of the unemployed, who would 
enlist for two or three months between December i and 
April I, with the privilege of reenlisting in the regular 
army or the Continentals ; by this plan some optimists 
hope to build up an army, within ten years, of 3,000,000 
trained men! 

Another plan, adopted by several railroads east of 
Pittsburgh, is the ofifer, to any employe entitled to two 
weeks' vacation, of a furlough of two extra weeks for 
the purpose of joining a camp for one month's military 
training, — provided his department can spare him. 
These employes receive no pay for the extra two weeks ; 
but the leave itself and the ofifer of free transportation 
to and from the camp are expected to induce thousands 



96 PREPAREDNESS 

of railroad clerks, enginemen, conductors and train- 
men to acquire a month's military training. 

Another plan is to have the State or Department of 
War equip each volunteer fireman with a military uni- 
form and a modern rifle, and subject him to military drill 
at his firehouse twice a month. There are 250,000 vol- 
unteer firemen in the State of Pennsylvania alone, and 
these men are already trained to fight fire. " Given a 
knowledge of the manual of arms," the enthusiastic 
supporters of this plan declare, " a reserve force of fire- 
men could be organized, who would in time of war only 
need to become acclimated to outdoor life and camp re- 
strictions to be thorough and efficient soldiers." 

Crime-fighters, also, in the form of city-policemen, are 
being trained in vulnerable New York to resist attack 
from a foreign foe. A public performance was recently 
given by New York's " finest," who showed just how a 
battery of artillery should be worked and captured. 
General Wood, who was present at the performance, 
was moved to say : " I wish we had a million men like 
these in our army " ; and a newspaper commented upon 
it as follows : " The sham battle was valuable because 
no one wiio saw it could come away with the belief that 
such a maneuver could have been accomplished by any 
fraction of the million untrained men that we have been 
told would spring to arms in our defense between sunrise 
and sunset if our country were to be attacked by a foreign 
foe." 

If, now, the disease-fighters in the form of our city 
street-cleaners could be trained in the use of a rifle as 
well as a broom, we might begin to feel some small meas- 
ure of preparedness. But, on second thought, the fire- 
men, policemen and street-cleaners are found to perform 
such useful services for our own people that drafting 
them off to fight against foreign foes might inflict irrep- 
arable damage upon us from the foes of our own house- 
hold. Hence the persistent and varied effort to 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 97 

call to the colors laborers engaged in less vital occupa- 
tions. 

In illustration of this effort may be mentioned the plan 
of certain Bible Classes in Philadelphia which, founded 
on " muscular," and even " prize-fighting, Christianity," 
have attracted many exuberant youths and others to 
them. These Classes established a training camp in their 
suburban headquarters and sent out an appeal to ten 
thousand of the city's business and commercial houses, 
legal firms, banks and patriotic societies, asking that a 
full holiday on Saturdays be given, so that their em- 
ployes may receive a " week-end course of military train- 
ing from Friday evening until Monday morning." The 
local newspapers were very generous in their accounts 
of this experiment, and the public was treated for sev- 
eral weeks to glowing descriptions of how the 150 " Bible 
Rookies " sprang from their cots in the early dawn, ate 
boiled potatoes, fish and prunes in true army style, were 
drilled in the rudiments of military tactics and in the 
use of rifle and bayonet, were visited by a large number 
of society folk from Philadelphia and New York, whom 
they " thrilled by their surprising fitness," witnessed a 
sham battle given for their benefit by United States ma- 
rines, cheered the founder of their Bible Classes when 
he was promoted to the rank of corporal " for meritori- 
ous conduct and gallantry in drills," and listened to 
" noted military officials and statesmen," whose ad- 
dresses on the aversion of France to military prepared- 
ness in 191 1 and other salutary topics were interspersed 
with religious services and sacred solos. 

It is hoped that such an example as this will be con- 
tagious and that the joint demand for Bibles and rifles 
will sweep over the country. To supply this demand, — 
at least for the purchase and use of rifles, — the National 
Rifle Association of America has been formed, with 
headquarters under the shadow of the capitol in Washing- 
ton. Congress is to be asked to aid in the formation of 



98 PREPAREDNESS 

rifle clubs throughout the country, by providing for the 
construction of rifle ranges and for the distribution of 
Krag rifles, ammunition and target supplies. The Asso- 
ciation, in a recent appeal to the public for financial as- 
sistance, states that it has already organized and has in 
active operation about 500 rifle clubs among civilians, 
sixty among colleges and universities, and about 200 
among the public and private preparatory schools. It 
also states that its aim is " to popularize rifle shooting 
which is so necessary for national defense, and place it, 
in that respect, on the same plane as golf, baseball, and 
similar pastimes and introduce it as one of the recognized 
sports in the athletic curriculum of the colleges and 
schools of the country." 

The Schools and Colleges 

The great Promised Land of the military prepareders, 
however, is the American school system, public and pri- 
vate. They turn their glowing eyes towards it and des- 
cry a magnificent " army " of 22,000,000 students. 

Exemption of the Infants and Girls 

Nineteen millions of these, it is true, are in the ele- 
mentary schools and are too young to be trained to 
shoot and be shot. In the high schools and colleges, too, 
the girls and young women would probably have to be 
made exempt from military training, — although this ex- 
emption has been repudiated by many women, one of 
whom declared recently at Vassar College : " A full bat- 
talion of girls, physically vigorous, well balanced and 
able-bodied, prepared and trained to fight and 
thoroughly armed, would be a great asset to our coun- 

There are still some old-fashioned people who believe 
that women trained to be mothers are an even greater 
asset to the country than if they were trained to be sol- 
diers; and most of the prepareders, though for quite a 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 99 

different reason, share this belief. A prominent advo- 
cate of preparedness, who is equally prominent as an 
opponent of " race suicide," declares that the sentiment, 
" I did not raise my boy to be a soldier," is on precisely 
the same moral level as the sentiment, " I did not raise 
my girl to be a mother." We may assume that this cryp- 
tic utterance implies that the moral level referred to is 
a low one. But the women champions of woman-sol- 
diers aver that such critics, while they are opposed to 
race suicide, are not really opposed to the suicide of 
races, and that if the future fathers of the race are to 
be killed off in war, the future mothers of the race may 
as well prepare to be killed also. 

Even the physical weaklings, with as good brains, and 
hearts that beat as warmly with patriotism, as any in 
the land, demand their share in preparedness. Espe- 
cially in the mining districts, where many youths are 
under the regulation military height and physical fitness, 
there is said to be a strong demand for " bantam bat- 
talions." 

Boys the "Real Fighters" 

But " the best that ye have " is the demand of the 
Martians, and these are sought for in the best qualified 
pupils in schools and colleges. The President of the 
Navy League clamors for " a standing army of 1,000,000 
young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty- 
one." In support of his thesis that boys are the real 
fighters, he argues as follows : " The standing army 
should consist of boys. There should not be a man, ex- 
cept the officers, more than twenty-one years of age in 
the whole army. I say this because in all real fighting 
it is being proved that the boys are those who make the 
real fighters. Instead of being a drawback, however, 
this fact makes the problem of our national defense 
simpler. We have proved that schools such as West 
Point and Annapolis not only create the best soldiers 



100 PREPAREDNESS 

there are, but that they develop remarkably fine, well- 
educated men, who make the best citizens when they go 
into private life. Every year there are 800,000 boys who 
reach the age of eighteen years in this country. It is 
admitted that the Government benefits itself when it 
takes upon itself the obligation of educating these boys. 
The answer to the military side of the problem is this : 
the Government must educate these boys, or the percent- 
age of them required, at schools similar to West Point 
and Annapolis, and in this way equip them not only to 
make the United States formidable, but to take their 
places in the community as splendidly educated, splen- 
didly developed citizens. There would be no loss of time 
on the part of the boys and there would be no economic 
loss to the country, but no nation on earth would dare 
attempt a war of conquest at our expense." 

The Governor of Illinois, who demands a body of citi- 
zen-soldiery of 2,000,000 men, proposes to procure them 
primarily " by requiring every college and university 
in the United States which receives from any State or 
from the Federal Government any support or appropria- 
tion of money to give a military training to its students 
during the four years of the university or college course." 

The 400,000 Continentals, proposed by the present 
administration, are desired to be from eighteen to twenty- 
eight years of age, and perferably from eighteen to 
twenty-one. The 20,000 officers required to command 
them are to be gleaned " from the regular army and na- 
tional guard, from civil life, from military schools and 
colleges." 

The Schools as Recruiting Grounds 

With such demand and opportunity looming up before 
the youth of the land, the slogan has gone forth, 
" Every school-boy a soldier, every college-man an offi- 
cer." The best, the easiest, the most logical, the cheap- 
est method of creating an army is declared to be " to 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 101 

take the boy when he is fifteen and give him four years 
of thorough military training with his academic work " ; 
thus, " while educating for peace, prepare for war." 

Train the school-boys in arms; take them at the age 
of fourteen, and give them instruction in the use of a 
rifle, — preferably a wooden one for the first year or two, 
— for, say, one hour every other day throughout their 
schooling; let a practical army man give the instruction, 
and the State supervise it so as to make it uniform in 
all schools, and pay the bill. 

Such is the advice or demand heard on every side, and 
our statesmen have begun to respond to it. A State 
Senator in Pennsylvania, for example, has introduced a 
bill in the Legislature which provides for the making 
of military and naval instruction compulsory in all 
schools, public, private and parochial, seminaries, col- 
leges and universities in Pennsylvania; all male pupils 
over the age of ten are to receive this instruction for one- 
half day during each week of every school term, unless 
disqualified by physical disability; in addition to this, 
encampments are to be held in June, July and August, 
each camp to last one week, and in Philadelphia and 
other towns and cities on navigable streams, naval in- 
struction to be given ; the expense, of course, to be borne 
by the State. 

Military Training in the Schools 

This recrudescence of the educational ideal of ancient 
Sparta has not yet become a wide-spread reality in our 
Twentieth-Century, American Commonwealth of Penn- 
sylvania. But there are many voices raised, even in the 
State of William Penn and the Constitutional Conven- 
tion, which declare that the efficiency of Germany is due, 
in education, industry, science and all the arts of civili- 
zation, as well as in warfare, to military discipline and 
training. What other system of education, it is trium- 
phantly asked, equals military training in breadth, rich- 



102 PREPAREDNESS 

ness, individual development and cooperative organiza- 
tion? If a distinctively military system of education has 
v^^orked near miracles for so phlegmatic a people as the 
Germans, what rich returns would it not bring to a nerv- 
ous, energetic people such as ours? 

Even the answer to such questions which comes from 
a Europe weltering in the blood, the manifold miseries, 
the political and moral debasement of millions, is not 
sufficient to drown these voices. The day is not far dis- 
tant, they confidently predict, when a good, thorough 
course of military discipline will be required in every 
institution of higher learning in our land ; then, and not 
until then, they assure us, will the American college be 
freed from the stigma that for years has been cast upon 
it, namely, that it does not properly equip men for life 
work. 

As preparation for this " life work," some high schools 
have accordingly undertaken the task of properly in- 
structing their pupils how to kill. The California Board 
of Education has recently announced that military in- 
struction is to be provided as part of the public school 
course in that State. Wyoming is said to be proud of 
the way in which military training in its schools has 
eclipsed in popularity athletic sports and games, and 
has given its youthful citizens a new efficiency, especially 
in " wall-scaling." 

A medical gentleman of Philadelphia, whose specialty 
appears to be the development of America's facilities for 
supplying wooden legs to the French and British soldiers 
who have suffered the amputation of their own legs, has 
recently offered to be one of a hundred men to sub- 
scribe $i,ooo each for the purpose of introducing mili- 
tary training into the high schools of the city. This 
offer received the enthusiastic endorsement of Major- 
General Leonard Wood, who is one of the " international 
counselors of the Philadelphia Bible Classes," and the 
founder of those classes promptly subscribed the second 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 103 

$1,000 to the proposed fund. Thus far, only one other 
subscriber is reported to have come forward; but it is 
hoped that the ahimni associations of the high schools 
will at least establish rifle-clubs in their respective 
schools, 

In colleges and universities, also, courses in military 
training are being introduced and extended, and rifle 
and revolver clubs are being formed. The presidents 
of some of our leading universities are leading this phase 
of preparedness, chiefly for the reason, as expressed by 
one of the most prominent of them, that this country 
should go in for " military strength which is available 
but not visible." 

The strength and menace of invisible government of 
various kinds have made themselves visible to most 
thoughtful people in this country during recent years ; 
future generations will scarcely thank these eminent uni- 
versity presidents for laying the foundations of another 
invisible government based upon " available but not visi- 
ble military strength," — unless, indeed, those generations 
shall have become entirely reconciled to and dependent 
upon militarism. The fear of the Gaul, the Slav, the 
Briton, etc., has been so thoroughly instilled into the 
minds of the Prussian youths of recent generations, and 
they have become so thoroughly trained in the use of 
arms and in the belief that by arms alone can interna- 
tional disputes be thoroughly settled, that they have built 
up a military strength available for their own purposes 
and visible in its essence and results to all the world. 



The Case For and Against 

In view of this plain lesson of reason and experience, 
it has caused considerable amazement that the trustees 
of the educational ideals of this republic should thus lend 
themselves to any movement which possesses the least 
possibility of Prussianizing and Spartanizing our educa- 



104* PREPAREDNESS 

tional system. There are various pretexts or excuses 
urged by and for them. 

For example, they urge that there is a fine physical 
result in military training. When shown that athletics 
and free sports have a far finer physical result, they insist 
that military training supplies mental and moral values 
not to be found in other forms of education. This ex- 
cuse is reminiscent of the good old New England house- 
wife who refused to screen her home against flies for the 
reason that it would be flying in the face of Providence 
and that, by enabling her sons to suspend their individual 
fly-fighting, would make them so pesky lazy. 

If the educational system of this Twentieth Century 
has no other and infinitely superior mental and moral 
equivalents for military training in school, it had better 
go out of business at once and surrender the whole task 
of educating both boys and girls to the officers of the 
army and navy. 

Falling back upon the plea of necessity, the advocates 
of military training insist that we must train our school- 
boys to defend their country against the attack of a for- 
eign foe. When asked what they mean by " military 
training in schools," they speak confidently of calisthen- 
ics, keeping step, manoeuvring, scaling walls, handling 
arms ; they admit that a real rifle is dangerous in the 
hands of a boy, but say that he can " manipulate " a 
wooden gun for the first few years of his training. 

Its Utter Inadequacy 

In the light of modern warfare, how preposterously 
inadequate such training is. It is in truth no better than 
" tin-soldiering." Even real rifles are being antiquated 
by artillery that fires shrapnel shell twenty miles, by 
machine guns, by hand grenades ; gunpowder is being 
discarded for cordite, turpinite and the rest of the — ites, 
for cholorine and other asphyxiating gases. Shall we 
go into the business of turning our boys into chemical 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 105 

and physical laboratories and machine-shops for the pur- 
pose of giving them an adequate training in the Twentieth 
Century art of killing men ? That is what the universities 
of Germany are devoting themselves to at present; — in 
time of a great war, it is true ; but, if we are going to pre- 
pare ior real war, it is difficult to see why our universities, 
colleges and high schools should not devote themselves to 
the invention and manufacture of man-killing compounds, 
devices and machinery in time of peace. Warfare is now 
so largely a matter of explosives and machinery that 
mere " drill " is like the progress of the pendulum. 

Again, the utter inadequacy of any thorough military 
training in schools has been tacitly admitted by the advo- 
cates of preparedness, who have planned supplementary 
training in such things as summer camps and winter 
courses of correspondence. Even to the tyro in the 
study of the art of warfare as practised in our time, such 
plans are obviously ridiculous. Their adoption would 
mean merely one more futile and extravagantly expen- 
sive experiment in the long, unending series of experi- 
ments that have caused the squandering of hundreds upon 
hundreds of millions of dollars on our military and naval 
establishments during the past dozen years, yet which 
have left us, in the words of our military and naval ex- 
perts, " absolutely unprepared." 

How futile such experiments in the military training 
of school and college boys would necessarily be, may be 
estimated by a consideration of real warfare in the 
trenches, in superdreadnoughts and subma-rines, in air- 
ships and aeroplanes. We have heard much in the East 
recently of how they have solved the problem of military 
training in the schools out in the State of Wyoming. 
That system, which goes through the familiar " drilling " 
and rifle-practice, culminates in what is described as a 
marvelous dexterity in scaling walls. 

Now, we may picture in our mind's eye a regiment of 
Wyoming youths carrying a defensive war against Ger- 



106 PREPAREDNESS 

many into the enemy's territory. They cross the Atlantic 
with its mines and submarines and part of a continent 
bristling with intrenchments. " Somewhere in Germany " 
they would find at least two walled towns to be captured 
by them, — not of great political or military value, but 
still provided with walls ; and there they would find, also, 
a few forts, likewise provided with walls, — and with other 
equipment as well. They would doubtless advance with 
all possible bravery and with all possible perfection of 
goose-step and maneuver across the landscape towards the 
coveted wall. But before they could arrive within ten 
miles of it, some such machine as a 42-centimeter 
" Chubby Bertha," mounted on top of the wall or behind 
it, would hurl a lyddite shell, or a Zeppelin, hovering a 
mile or two in the air, would drop two tons of explosives, 
upon the gallant regiment and blow it into fragments. 
Were it not trifling with a grave subject, it might even 
be said that such a regiment of trained Wyoming youths 
would be but as dust in the balance against the Chubby 
Berthas of Essen. But this is running the theme into 
the ground. 

Sparta, Prussia or America: Which Shall It Be? 

Successful warfare in our time is in sober earnest a 
most complicated science and a most difficult art. It is a 
profession in itself, and the business of professionals. 
Shall this kind of professional training, — the training to 
kill, — be placed in our schools and given to children and 
youths before they have learned the art of living? Even 
training in the science of medicine and the art of healing 
is to be given only after a broad training for life has been 
secured in high school and college. 

Ancient Sparta urged the plea of necessity, of pre- 
paredness for defense, and devoted its schools, its indus- 
try, its religion, its government so consistently to defense 
that at last there was nothing left in Sparta zvorth de- 
fending, and for many centuries it has been a country 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 107 

village and its name a byword of reproach for extreme 
militarism. Ulrich von Hutten, a scion of the old Ger- 
man nobility, became imbued four centuries ago with 
the spirit of the Renaissance, and appealed to his fellow- 
junkers to turn away from their immemorial occupation 
of warfare and military training, and to devote them- 
selves to the new world of industry, literature, science 
and art. They were deaf to his appeal, and military pre- 
paredness, — continually followed by what it prepared for, 
— has been the key-note of German history through all 
the sad centuries since. 

Shall our Twentieth Century American Republic adopt 
in earnest as its educational system the Spartan and Prus- 
sian watchword, " In time of peace prepare for War " ? 
Or shall it confidently, unfalteringly enlist under the ban- 
ner of, " In time of peace prepare for Peace "? Teachers 
and writers of history have but recently become emanci- 
pated from their slavery to drum and trumpet history ; 
they have determined to accept no other false gods, 
but to devote their labors henceforth to the real things 
of life in the past. Shall we do less for the future ? Shall 
we devote our schools to training drum and trumpet men? 
Or shall we train them for those great realities of life 
for which von Hutten and his compeers of the Renais- 
sance plead so eloquently, and which the world, bleeding 
from every pore from the wounds of militarism, still so 
sorely needs ? There must be no uncertainty in our an- 
swer. We will train our youths, not for the destruction 
of human life, the debasement of human character and 
the dethronement of civilization, but for all the construc- 
tive works of a true and beneficent civilization, not the 
least of which is a means for the judicial settlement of 
disputes between the nations. We will teach them, too, 
the indubitable truth that genuine military preparedness 
is by its very essence opposed to such civilization and 
judicial settlement; that it constitutes their chief obstacle; 
that they proceed along precisely opposite paths of prog- 



108 PREPAREDNESS 

ress and retrogression, and that we cannot pursue them 
both} 

The Problem of Officers 

It is a truism, which is usually neglected in popular 
advocacy and consideration of preparedness, that we can- 
not have an army without officers, and that the larger 
the army the more numerous the officers. 

How Many Do We Needf 

Our present regular army has 4,572 officers. At its 
full authorized strength, it would requi'-e 154 more. If 
we adopt the administration's plan 01 increase for the 
regular army, it would need 2,514 more. 

The 400,000 Continentals would require about 25,000 
officers. The State Militia, or National Guard, has 8,223 
officers. That is to say that we have at present about 
13,000 officers, and require for the most moderate plan 
of proposed increase about 27,000 more. In addition to 
these, a reserve corps for all branches of the army is 
urgently demanded. The first problem is, therefore, how 
can we procure this number of highly trained men? 

The chief defect in the British army, at the outbreak 
of the present war, is declared by military critics to have 
been the lack of well trained officers. Germany had more 
than 45,000 highly trained officers in reserve, ready to 
lead any kind of troops. 

How Shall We Train Them? 

The Military Academy at West Point, which has grad- 
uated about 5,000 officers in its century and more of ex- 
istence, is to be increased in capacity as far as possible. 
But this would be far from sufficient, and various other 
plans are being advocated. 

For example, General Wood recommended, when Chief 
of Staff in 1913, that 400 men should be selected each 

* See pages 259 to 267. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 109 

year from the graduating classes of institutions in which 
ofificers of the army give miHtary instruction ; the men 
thus selected to be commissioned as provisional second 
lieutenants in the regular army for a period of one year 
with full pay and allowances, and discharged at the end 
of the year with a certificate of proficiency, if they merit 
it, as company, troop, or battery officers of militia, volun- 
teer and the regular army in time of war. During the 
past half-century, there has been one college or univer- 
sity in each State which, in return for an appropriation, 
prescribes military training of a certain amount, — usually 
three hours a week for two years, — for freshmen and 
sophomores, and this may be continued as an elective for 
two years longer. Counting those in Hawaii and Porto 
Rico, there are fifty-two of these " land-grant " colleges 
and universities, and sixteen similar institutions for the 
colored race; in these, there are about 27,000 students 
enrolled for military drill. From these then, General 
Wood's 400 could doubtless be obtained each year. But 
the discrepancy between 400 a year and the 40,000 officers 
needed, according to General Wood, to develop the volun- 
teer strength of the army, is a large one and would take 
a century or so by this plan to overcome. 

The training in these " land-grant " colleges, also, seems 
to be far from adequate. A graduate of one of them re- 
cently criticised it as follows : " The military training 
was taken very much as a joke by the great majority of 
students and discipline was almost Zero. We had better 
discipline by far in the Boys' Brigade to which I 
had formerly belonged. . , It is an uphill job at the best 
[to enlist the students' interest in military training], for 
they are there for another purpose and consider military 
drill and the study of tactics as a necessary evil." 

Another plan is advocated by a United States Senator 
who proposes to convert several army posts " which have 
no particular strategic importance," into training-schools 
subordinate to West Point. 



110 PREPAREDNESS 

Another Senator proposes to authorize the President to 
commission as officers of the reserve corps, not above 
the grade of colonel, such citizens as may qualify under 
the rules laid down by the Secretary of War. This plan 
is designed to recruit officers from men who have had 
training in the regular army or militia and retired to pri- 
vate life. These men are criticised, however, as having 
grown rusty in knowledge, skill and physique. 

Another plan is embodied in a bill presented in the last 
session of Congress and approved by the House Commit- 
tee on Military Affairs, which provides for the establish- 
ment in each State of a training-school with a capacity 
of not less than 300 students, and to which the State shall 
contribute $40,000 and the United States $80,000 yearly. 
By this plan it is estimated that 100 men would be grad- 
uated yearly from each of these schools, or 4,800 in all, 
and that within ten years we could procure by means of 
them nearly 50,000 officers for the reserve. That is to 
say, by the expenditure of some $50,000,000 at once, and 
an annual expenditure of $1,250,000 for ten years there- 
after, we might place our officers' reserve in 1925 where 
Germany's was in 1914. 

Summer Training Camps 

Although the expense of such methods as these has no 
terror for our enthusiastic prepareders, they are entirely 
too slow for most of them who clamor to be prepared at 
once, lest " the German foe should land upon our shores 
to-morrow." Hence the great outburst of effort to take a 
short cut to the desired end by the establishment of 
" summer camps," designed especially for the military 
training of college students during their long vacation. 

In the summer of 1913, the War Department main- 
tained two such camps, one at Gettysburg and one at 
Monterey, California. The next summer, the number 
was increased to four, and the camps were located at 
Asheville, North Carolina; Ludington, Michigan; Mon- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 111 

terey, California, and Burlington, Vermont. This sum- 
mer, the camps were again four in number, and were 
located at Chickamauga Park, Georgia ; Plattsburg, New 
York; Ludington, Michigan, and the Presidio in San 
Francisco. 

The number of men attracted to these camps thus far 
has not been very considerable, — about 300 in 1913, 700 
in 1914, and 1,000 in 1915, and the training they receive 
is confessedly only a beginning or less. As one military 
critic, — a captain of infantry in the National Guard of 
Pennsylvania, — puts it : " There are no short cuts to 
efficiency in the art of military science. The attempt to 
qualify men as officers by giving them a course during 
the summer of four weeks' instruction is absurd. They 
can't even get a smattering of the requirements. It would 
be the height of folly and suicidal to entrust the lives and 
health of the men to officers with such meagre training." 
" You can make a volunteer soldier," says another critic, 
an officer in the regular army, " but you can't make a good 
officer in a year, any more than you can train a good 
lawyer or a good singer in a year." 

The two summer camps established at Plattsburg, New 
York, in 191 5, for business and professional men, have 
been subjected to the same criticism. They amount to 
little or nothing for real military training, is the verdict; 
even when followed up with " correspondence courses " 
during the winter, and with " upper classes " next sum- 
mer for the graduates of this summer's course, they are 
still obviously inadequate. Their real purpose has been 
to serve as " the small end of a megaphone through which 
General Wood's words of military wisdom may pene- 
trate to the uttermost ends of the land." This " military 
wisdom " is summed up in the words of the General to 
his Plattsburg " rookies," as follows : " I hope that when 
you go away from here you will use your influence as 
good citizens, and, in contrast to that of the masses, by 
whom you should not be influenced, to help secure good 



112 PREPAREDNESS 

legislation for the establishment of an adequate arma- 
ment in this country." 

F. GUNS AND AMMUNITION 

Artillery 

Although " the man behind the gun " is still of some 
moment, just as the factory-child behind the loom is still 
of some importance, the power of machinery has asserted 
itself in war even more than in industry. The gun- 
makers, especially, have had their " innings " in the prep- 
arations for and conduct of the present vi^ar, and have 
made many a " home-run." 

Siege Guns 

The results of their labors were first made visible to 
the vi^orld in the campaign in Belgium, when the fortresses 
of Liege and Antwerp crumbled into dust before their 
onslaught. The famous 42-centimeter, or 17-inch gun, 
affectionately known to the German soldiers as " the 
chubby Bertha," and the " Skoda Forty-two " of Aus- 
tria, or as it is known in the trenches, " the Pilsener," 
caused so great a change in warfare one year ago that, 
military experts in Europe declare, " the infantryman no 
longer fights ; but, when the big guns have finished the 
fighting, he merely occupies the trenches they have won." 
These great guns hurl, not solid shot, but immense shrap- 
nel shells, the weight of which, in the case of the Skoda, 
is 2,800 pounds ; penetrating to the depth of twenty feet 
in the earth, they explode two seconds after impact, and 
resemble in sound and results an earthquake. They kill 
every living thing within 150 yards, and many who are 
farther distant ; the mere pressure of their gas destroys 
the partitions and roofs of " bomb-proof " shelters, and 
kills. Winds or maims scores of men who might otherwise 
escape the eruption of metal fragments, stones and earth. 
If the shells are fired from a short distance, their explo- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 113 

sion melts rifle-barrels as if they had been struck by light- 
ning, while men are totally annihilated, clothing, flesh and 
bones, so that they are simply reported as " missing," 
since no proof of their death is found. 

The Germans' success in bombarding Dunkirk at a 
range of twenty-two miles, — their gunners being guided 
by a Taube flying above the city, — has caused them to ex- 
periment in the construction of guns designed to reach 
from Calais to Dover; these guns, carrying a projectile 
weighing about one ton, and with a muzzle velocity of 
3,700 feet a second, are calculated to have a range of 
twenty-eight miles, thus enabling them to command the 
English coast from Calais to Dover and a distance of six 
or seven miles inland. The French are reported to have 
completed and to have put into use for their terrific drive 
on Metz, a 55-centimeter (or 22-inch) gun which hurls 
a shell weighing two tons a distance of fifteen miles. 

Field Guns 

In Poland, the battle of infantry and cavalry disap- 
peared before the battle of artillery. The biggest guns, 
which shot the straightest and pounded the defensive 
works the hardest, won the three weeks' battle for Lodz 
and the four weeks' battle for Warsaw. The battle of 
Riga and Dvinsk has languished because the increasing 
distance and the swampy nature of the ground has re- 
tarded the mobilization of the " Chubby Berthas " and 
their supply of shells. A student of the Russian strug- 
gle writes as follows : 

" Infantry fights still go on. But they take a subsi- 
diary character. Russian infantrymen and the German 
infantrymen no longer * take ' positions. The ' taking ' 
is done by the guns. The infantry merely accept as a 
present the position which the guns have conquered. The 
guns pound trenches to bits and make them untenable. 
When they are untenable the infantry goes ahead and 
occupies them. Sometimes the infantry fails to occupy 



114 PREPAREDNESS 

them. This means that the artillery pounding has not 
been as severe as was expected. It does not mean that 
the attacker's infantry has been beaten by the defenders. 
The best infantry is the infantry of the side whose ar- 
tillery pounds hardest. Infantry cannot even push fur- 
ther the victory of artillery. Its advance is limited to the 
actual few hundred yards which artillery has smashed 
and crushed. Before it can get further it must wait till 
its artillery again opens the door." 

In East Prussia, at the Battle of Tannenberg, the ar- 
tillery of an army corps was posted and concentrated 
upon a single brigade of the advancing Russian corps ; 
the brigade was wiped out in twenty minutes, only 700 
men escaping. Next, a division was attacked in the same 
way, and the battle, which began as a " mobile battle," 
was turned into a series of artillery massacres. Von 
Hindenburg is a " hero of artillery " in a far truer sense 
than Napoleon ever was, and has applied the use of the 
big gun to battles in the field as well as to the destruction 
of fortresses. 

Mobility and Durability 

The heaviest artillery, which was formerly immovable 
except along the lines of railroads, can now be moved 
from place to place and concentrated against fortresses 
or in the field, by means of motor-cars and good roads. 
By the use of cars provided with belted wheels, the big 
guns can now be fired from the carriages on which they 
are mounted, instead of being removed to platforms 
solidly constructed of wood and concrete, as was for- 
merly requisite. The shells for the big guns cost about 
$4,000 each, and each shot does about $1,000 damage to 
the lining of the guns. Accordingly, the " life " of the 
" Chubby Berthas " is placed at about 120 shots, and that 
of the United States' 16-inch guns at 225, while the Aus- 
trian 12-inch guns are reported to be lasting, — probably 
with re- rifling, — for more than 1,200 shots. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 115 

The disintegration of the inner tubes of the big guns, 
which is caused by gases, is said not to be insuperable 
and has already been diminished. The 17-inch gun, for ex- 
ample, fires as many shots without spoiling the tubes as 
were fired ten years ago by the 12-inch gun. The in- 
ventor of the 17-inch gun is accordingly now working 
upon the construction of a ^6-inch gun, which by means 
of a replacement system, will diminish disintegration, and 
by means of specially constructed trucks can be trans- 
ported by rail. The 17-inch mortars fire a shell four 
times heavier than the shells of the 12-inch guns, and the 
36-inch gun is to fire a shell thirty times as heavy as that 
of the 12-inch guns! The Russo-Japanese War of ten 
years ago gave to a skeptical world the 12-inch gun; will 
the present war give us the 36-inch gun ? 

THE PASSING OF THE RIFLE 

The Machine-Gun 

This is indeed the day of big things, in war as well as 
in peace. The day of smaller things, — even of what has 
been idolized as " the deadly rifle," — appears to be pass- 
ing in the strain and stress of this greatest war in history. 

The machine-gun and hand-grenade are declared to 
have sounded the rifle's doom. The artillery has replaced 
the rifleman from the front of the stage of battle, and 
even in his obscure corner he is rapidly being transformed. 
The machine-gun, which was formerly regarded as a 
weapon only of defense, has been proved during the pres- 
ent war to be a deadly weapon of oflfense as well. The 
Germans have replaced the old type, which required two 
men to move and handle it, by a new type which requires 
only one man. They have neglected the cult of the rifle, 
we are told by a British military expert, and are manu- 
facturing machine-guns by the thousand, light enough for 
one man to carry, but more deadly than the concentrated 
fire of an entire company of riflemen. The concentrated 



116 PREPAREDNESS 

fire from one side of an English square, at the Battle of 
Waterloo, emptied less than a score of French saddles at 
effective range ; one modern machine-gun would have 
destroyed an entire squadron. " The German prefers 
the machine-gun to the rifle," this expert assures us, " for 
not only does it enable him to sit down comfortably and 
squirt death at the foe as water is squirted through a 
hose-pipe, but also it gives him that sense of superiority, 
that pleasant feeling of security which the possession of 
a superior weapon always conveys to the fighting man. 
In modern warfare, and particularly in trench warfare, 
with its accompaniment of short, swift rushes against 
barbed-wire entanglements, the soldier who can fire a 
hundred shots to his opponent's five has ninety-five 
chances of coming out of the struggle unscathed. In the 
compilation of casualty lists the machine-gun talks with 
a hundred tongues." 

Hand-Grenades 

The Germans have accordingly prophesied that after 
this war the rifle will be entirely obsolete. The French, 
too, are of the same opinion, but believe that it will be re- 
placed not so much by the machine-gun as by hand-gre- 
nades. A member of the French Legion writes as follows 
to the New York Sun: " Our new acting-captain, when 
chatting with some of the boys, told them that grenades 
were more useful in this war than rifles. The grenade 
soldiers (real grenadiers) did terrible damage in the First 
Regiment's fight. He intends to form a grenade section 
in our company. * It is the weapon for this war,' he said, 
' and is replacing the rifle. Before a battle, the artillery 
shell the enemy trenches for hours, and when the damage 
is almost complete the order to advance is given. The 
grenade men go first and throw their bombs into the 
trenches and complete the confusion. That's the only 
practical way in this warfare,' he wound up. So we are 
to become bomb-throwers. Well, it's all in a day's work." 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 117 

The Modern Arsenal 

This latest development in warfare is one evidence of 
an apparent return to primitive methods and obsolete 
weapons. Modern " grenadiers " are restoring to almost 
stationary warfare the almost forgotten art of throwing 
hand-grenades. Darts and arrows are again raining from 
the sky ; helmets, masks, bucklers, greaves, shirts of mail, 
breastplates, shield, hand-bayonets, or " trench daggers," 
sling-shots, bows, catapults, spears, lances, scaling-ladders, 
and man's oldest implement, the spade, have all been 
restored to important roles in this latest outbreak of man's 
earliest occupation. The use of and protection against 
aeroplane missiles, fragments of shells, curtains of fire, 
asphyxiating gases, and machine-gun bullets, have re- 
stored primitive fashions in horrible forms. Nothing 
that was devised in the past is being overlooked in the 
frantic search for means of offense and defense; while 
all modern devices are being developed to the utmost. 
The artillery, — field, foot, horse, mountain, seacoast, and 
siege, — howitzers, mortars, mitrailleuses, machine-guns, 
magazine-guns, rapid-fire guns, disappearing guns, — 
from 3-inch up to 17, — pistols, revolvers, automatic pis- 
tols, rifles, breech-loading and magazine, — such are a few 
of the myriad weapons available in the great arsenal of 
modern war. 

Where Are Our Guns? 

In the presence of such an array of facts and figures, 
the question is being pressed home upon us. Where are 
our Guns? Mr. Bryan has declared that in case of in- 
vasion *' a million men would leap to arms overnight " ; 
and Mr. Roosevelt retorts, " To whose arms would they 
leap?" 

Artillery 

We are said to have, on hand or being manufactured, 
852 field artillery guns ; the largest of these is the 6-inch 



118 PREPAREDNESS 

howitzer, and of them we have only 32. For the pro- 
posed increase in the regular army and for the Continen- 
tals, we need about 3,000 more. This is based on an esti- 
mate of three guns for every 1,000 men; but the present 
war has shown the need of increasing this estimate to 
five guns for every 1,000 men. 

At the beginning of the war, Russia had 6,000 field 
guns, Germany 5,000, France 4,800. Von Hindenburg 
has 1,700 field guns and 400 mortars, howitzers and siege 
guns, and the Austrians 800 guns, in the Russian cam- 
paign alone. In the Battle of San, in Galicia, last May, 
the Austrians and Germans concentrated the fire of 1,500 
guns upon one short section of the Russian lines. Even 
Bulgaria has 1.035 pieces of field artillery. In the single 
battle of Mukden, in the Russo-Japanese War, the Rus- 
sian army had 1,204 field guns in action, and Japan had 
922 guns on the same front ; " yet any ordinary engage- 
ment in the present war makes the Battle of Mukden 
look like a peace conference," — so say our experts. 

The United States, therefore, is evidently in a very bad 
way. Our regular army has only 72 pieces for coopera- 
tion with the infantry, 24 to accompany the cavalry and 
48 pieces of mountain artillery, — 144 in all ! But the 
worst is yet to come. General Wood testified that " the 
entire capacity of this country, working night and day, is 
500 guns a year. Hence, almost a year would be re- 
quired to supply the field artillery guns for one field army 
of a little less than 70,000 men ; and, since no war within 
the past forty- five years has lasted for a year [ ?] , our war 
would probably be over before we could manufacture an 
appreciable number of guns." 

It is true that an expert and inventor, who is interested 
in the sale of machine-guns, declares that " in case of 
war we should have no need of 17-inch mortars or other 
great guns, such as the Germans are using, for our field 
armies. There are no forts for us to batter down. What 
we should require is weapons with which to kill men, — 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 119 

particularly machine-guns." In view of the part played 
by big guns on the battlefields of the present war, how- 
ever, it is obvious that this inventor's wish is father to 
his thought. General Wood, on the contrary, declares 
that " the fire of modern field artillery is so deadly that 
troops cannot advance over terrain swept by these guns 
without prohibitive losses. It is therefore necessary to 
neutralize the fire of hostile guns before our troops can 
advance ; and the only way to neutralize the fire of this 
hostile field artillery is by field artillery guns ; for troops 
armed with the small arms are as effectual against this 
fire, until they arrive at about 2,000 yards from it, as 
though they were armed with knives." When we recall 
that the effective range of guns like those on the Queen 
Elisabeth, or like the " Chubby Berthas," is 12,000 yards, 
or anywhere from seven to fifteen to twenty miles, we 
can see the force of the argument for other big guns to 
silence them. How many do we really need ? How large 
should they be? How much would they cost? 

With our 852 guns, completed and partly completed, 
we could equip an army of 170,000 men ; if we need 5,000 
in order to cope with the Germany of 1914, and can pro- 
duce 500 a year, it would take us eight years to get ready 
on the single item of field guns. Or if we can increase 
our output of guns to keep pace with our increasing army, 
we should be obliged, in order to equip a very modest 
army of 800,000 men within one year, to increase our an- 
nual output of guns from 500 to 4,000. 

These guns are expensive. The best of them, — and 
surely we want the very best for " adequate defense," — 
cost $125,000 each; hence 4,000 more would represent 
an outlay of $500,000,000. This for the guns alone, and 
for a modest little army of 800,000. If we are to have 
an " adequate " army of some 5,000,000 men, our guns 
should cost us, — a sum as large as our entire national 
debt at the end of the Civil War! 

Again, these guns are obsolescent. They deteriorate 



120 PREPAREDNESS 

very rapidly with use, and they are speedily outclassed by 
larger, longer-firing and harder-hitting ones. Our 1 6-inch 
guns defending the Panama Canal, for example, are be- 
lieved or hoped to have a " life " of 225 shots. The 
French " 75's " and British 4>4-inch howitzers are firing 
from five to twenty-five shots a minute. With an esti- 
mate of one shot in ten minutes, our 16-inch guns would 
last about one day and a half of constant firing. The 
artillery duels in the present war last, we are told, for 
a week at a time. How many guns at this rate should 
we need for " adequate " defense, how much would they 
cost and how long would they be " adequate " ? 

Again, the increase in the size and range of gims has 
rivalled that in dreadnoughts. They creep along by 
inches, it is true, but every added inch or fraction thereof 
makes the entire existing outfit back-numbers. The 17- 
inch mortar, for example, fires a shell four times heavier 
than that of the 12-inch guns; the 36-inch gun, now 
being worked upon in Germany, is to fire a shell thirty 
times heavier than that of the 12-inch guns. What is 
" adequacy " along this line ? 

Machine-Guns 

As stated above, some of our military experts believe 
that zve are not so much in need of big guns as of ma- 
chine-guns, — the best weapons with which to kill men. 
" We now have some hundreds of such guns," one of 
these experts remarks, " we ought to have at least 5,000 
to start with, and it would take several months to make 
them." The Germans are reported to have had 50,000 
machine-guns early in 191 5, and are believed to have 
greatly increased their supply. 

Our army officials insist that the present war has 
proved the necessity of increasing the supply of machine- 
guns by about 400 per cent., or from three to twelve for 
every 1,000 infantrymen and cavalrymen in action. If 
we are to supply our modest little army of 800,000 at this 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 121 

rate, we shall need 9,600. If it takes three months to 
make 5,000, a half-year would be required to supply us 
with 10,000; and if we want as many as Germany had at 
the beginning of the war, we should need two and a half 
years to produce them. Long before that time, however, 
it might well have been decided that the new one-man 
machine-gun is far better than the old style ; and then we 
should be in for supplying not twelve, but a hundred, for 
every 1,000 soldiers. 

Rifles 

As has been seen, there are many critics who regard 
the day of the rifle as past, — eclipsed by that of the ma- 
chine-gun and hand grenade. There are still conserva- 
tives, however, who regard it as the main small arm. Our 
army officers demand five rifles for every man expected 
to be put into action. For an army of 800,000 this would 
mean 4,000,000 rifles, and for one of 5,000,000 men it 
would mean 25,000,000. We now have about 500,000. 
Shall we increase our stock by from 800 to 5,000 per cent., 
and what kind shall we invest in? A generation ago, all 
the great powers began to re-arm their troops with maga- 
zine rifles of small calibre, using high-power cartridges 
with smokeless powder. Ever since, there has been heated 
discussion as to which kind is the most effective. Shall 
we buy the Springfield, the Lee-Enfield, the Mauser, the 
A^^annlicher, the Schmidt-Rubin, the Lebel, or the Ari- 
sakae ? We thought we had solved the problem with the 
Krag-Jorgensen ; but a few years after their adoption in 
our army, they were discarded and have been stored up 
for a number of years in government arsenals. This year, 
they are being given to the " Government civilian rifle 
clubs " which have been organized, under stress of " pre- 
paredness," in the various States by the National Rifle 
Association. There were 355,000 of these rifles discarded 
by the United States army, and it was an expensive ex- 
periment. 



122 PREPAREDNESS 

The present war is expected to develop the long sought 
automatic rifle ; if so, it will doubtless have a try-out, un- 
less the machine-gun and shrapnel outclass the automatic 
as well as the simple rifle. 

Ammunition 

Napoleon's belief that " God is on the side of the big- 
gest battalions " has been revised by the present war to 
mean that " God is on the side of the biggest ammunition 
factories." The reason for this revision is seen in such 
facts as this, that the British army used more ammuni- 
tion in the single battle of Neuve Chapelle than they used 
in the entire Boer War, which lasted nearly three years ! 
To meet this demand for munitions, the belligerent 
governments have taken over the control of all the manu- 
factories, in their respective countries, and those that 
could do so have imported hundreds of millions worth 
from neutral lands, especially from the United States. 

War was once considered preeminently the profession 
of gentlemen of high degree; but now it is so much a 
matter of pulling levers and pushing buttons that it has 
become a promising field for the exploitation of woman 
and child labor, and its business of slaughter is one that 
smacks chiefly of the mechanic or machinist. 

The " electrical wizard " of America has recently ad- 
vised his fellow-countrymen to " maintain a potential pre- 
paredness for a war in which the fighting is done by ma- 
chines, not by men." In explanation of this advice, he 
continues : " Consider the great amount of powder being 
shot ofif on the European battle front every day. I would 
have built great factories in which twice as much powder 
as that could be manufactured. I would locate and have 
stored away enough material to make up the powder. 
Then I would not make it. I would have everything 
ready so that within forty-eight hours I could go ahead 
turning it out. Then as to shells ; I think it is a wasteful 
thing to make shells on lathes as they make them now. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 123 

We should get up shell machines for making them rapidly 
and in enormous quantities. Then I would grease the 
machines up and store them away with a great quantity 
of steel billets ready to be worked up on short notice. In 
fact, I would make my preparations potential and I would 
do it right away. The preparation should not be a mili- 
tary one at all. I don't like this military idea at all. It 
should be done solely on an economic basis, a business 
basis." 

Powder 

The chief difficulty with this genius's ingenious plan 
appears to be the obsolescence of powder and shot. 
" Trust in God, — and keep your powder dry " once 
seemed a sufficiently simple faith ; but to-day " powder " 
is very uncertain, both in quantity and quality. So many 
new and more powerful explosives have been invented, 
that powder itself is believed by some experts to be on 
the verge of being discarded, at least in warfare. 

The making of powder, too, has been revolutionized 
during the present war. Even in our neutral country, 
where invention has not as its parent the cruel necessity 
of warfare, two inventions have been introduced in the 
making of powder which are claimed of themselves alone 
to amount to a revolution in that industry. These are, 
first, a process by which smokeless powder can be made 
from the raw cotton within three weeks and seasoned in 
five days, while the process in use before the war required 
more than three months ; and, second, a process which 
yields black powder with much less smoke than the old 
variety. 

Another surprising development along this line has been 
the rise, or fall, of cotton from its status as a symbol of 
domestic peace to a munition of war as important as steel, 
lead or copper. The enormously increased demand for 
smokeless powder as a propulsive ammunition, — the 
power behind the bullet and the shell, — has caused an 



124. PREPAREDNESS 

enormous increase in the demand for cotton, which is the 
basis of this ammunition. As illustrative of this demand, 
it may be mentioned that every shot fired by a 14-inch 
gun uses up three-fifths of a bale of cotton. During the 
nine hours of the battle in the North Sea, 4,500 bales were 
shot away. In the first attack on the Dardanelles last 
March, 50,000 bales were consumed by the battleships of 
the Allies. One battery of the French field artillery 
shoots away cotton at the rate of 240 pounds (about one- 
half bale) per minute; and there are more than 2,000 of 
these batteries on the Western battle-front. As a result 
of such enormous consumption, it is estimated that, of 
the 14,000,000 bales consumed by the world this year, 
3,000,000 bales will go into smokeless powder; while be- 
fore the war, only 123,000 bales were consumed annually 
by the powder-making industry ! 

How much smokeless powder, then, or raw cotton, and 
what kinds of powders, — the nitrates or the chlorites, — 
shall we store up in order to be " adequately " prepared 
for the next record-breaking war that is said to be loom- 
ing up before us? 

Explosives 

In the days when solid shot was king, the supreme task 
was to hurl the shot with the utmost possible force and 
velocity; hence powder, or propulsive ammunition, was 
of prime consideration. Now, when shrapnel shell is 
king, explosive ammunition is the chief thing needful. 
It is not so important how fast or with what force the 
shell is hurled, just so it gets there. It may be dropped 
from an aeroplane, or shot into the air and permitted to 
fall, or tossed from trench to trench by hand. Just make 
it " connect," and the shell will do the rest. It is no 
longer the pounding force, but the explosive force, that 
is the chief thing needful. Hence the application of the 
science of chemistry to the development of new explo- 
sives. Cordite, for example, so popular with the British ; 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 125 

tri-nitro-toluene (or " T. N. T."), which is one of Ger- 
many's favorite explosives ; the " poudre Turpin " of the 
French, which is said to double the explosive effect of 
the shells fired by the 3-inch guns, or famous " 75's " ; lyd- 
dite, familiar to the public in the days of the Boer War; 
melinite, which an American claims to have invented, 
and a host of others which have raised might to the «th 
power of dynamite.^ One of these is just reported as 
in use by the Germans on the Western front, and is thus 
described : " It is a new and extremely powerful explo- 
sive contained in missiles which the French soldiers call 
bottles of champagne, cylindrical in form and about as 
long as a champagne bottle; that is to say, about 12 to 
16 inches, and about 5 inches in diameter. We suppose 
they are filled with liquid air or liquid carbonic acid. 
They are thrown a distance of from 300 to 400 yards, — 
this is the maximum, — and without any great initial ve- 
locity. You can follow the projectile through the air and 
see where it is going to drop. They are apparently 
thrown by means of mortars, and when they fall and 
explode the effect is equivalent to that produced by the 
explosion of a charge of 132 pounds of melinite. A single 
bottle of champagne makes a hole from 45 to 55 feet in 
diameter and 30 to 40 feet deep." 

Which of these shall we invest in for our " adequate " 
preparedness programme? Or shall we wait until Mr. 
John Hays Hammond, Jr., has perfected his new explo- 
sive, which is said to melt the thickest armor-plate and 
pass through a battleship or a fort like hot lead through 
butter ! Even then we could not rest content ; for we 
should be certain to have some other chemist or physicist 
far surpass the worst that Mr. Hammond could do. It 
is Twentieth Century science that is being applied to war- 
fare now, and Twentieth Century science has no such 
word as finis in its vocabulary. 

* See page 217. 



126 PREPAREDNESS 

Gases and Liquids 

The step from solids and near-gases to gases and 
liquids is an easy one in a chemical lahoratory, and war 
has learned to take it in regular and practical fashion. 

A fluid substance, resembling tar, has been set on fire 
and poured or sprayed into the enemy's trenches ; or from 
behind the thick column of smoke engendered by it, at- 
tacks have been made. Thus, we have revived in modern 
form the ancient Chinese " stink-pot," which the less 
scientific Europeans of the Middle Ages dubbed bar- 
barous and fiendish. 

Blazing petroleum, also, poured down the trenches and 
into the dug-outs, " burns out " their occupants and 
spreads a curtain of fire and suffocating smoke, from 
behind which attacks of offense and defense are made. 
The Greeks of the Byzantine Empire, when Constanti- 
nople fell into the hands of the Turks, four centuries and 
a half ago, used a crude form of this device which was 
celebrated for centuries under the name of " Greek fire." 

That form of turpinite which, exploding, is said to 
asphyxiate every living thing for a mile around; and 
the bombs filled with laughing-gas which are described 
as " causing their victims to laugh for fifteen minutes and 
then to burst into blinding tears," — such are two samples 
of weapons devised in French laboratories. 

The German laboratories appear to have been mobilized 
more rapidly than the French, and to have reached the 
field of battle first. Hence the world has heard more 
of the asphyxiating gases, — chlorine and other, — which 
the Germans are accused of having used with great effect 
since the early Spring of 191 5. First, in the trench war- 
fare on the Western front, where " three-foot cylinders, 
charged with chlorine gas," were emptied or blown upon 
the enemy, preparatory to a vigorous infantry attack 
with the bayonet, upon the helpless foe flopping in the 
trail of the poison gas. Again, on the Russian front, 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 127 

particularly In the attack on the fortress of Ossowetz, 
where an assault was prepared for by the firing of 600 
asphyxiating gas bombs, and these, not proving sufficient 
to poison the garrison, were followed by twice as many 
two days later, when the fort was taken. 

The British, too, learned and practised the art of gas 
warfare, and on at least one battlefield, — that of Hulluch, 
— the white gas of the Britons mingled with the pink and 
green of the Germans. An eye-witness gives the follow- 
ing account of this most " scientific " of battles : " The 
whole line of battle was in a grayish mist, which obscured 
all landmarks, so that even the tower bridge was only 
faintly visible. But presently, when our artillery lifted, 
there were new clouds arising from the ground and 
spreading upward in a great, dense curtain of fleecy tex- 
ture. They came from our smoke which was to mask our 
infantry attack, and beyond them rolled another wave of 
cloud of thinner, whiter vapor, which clung to the ground 
and then curled forward to the enemy's lines. * That's 
our gas,' said a voice on one of the slag heaps, amidst 
the little group of observers, ' and the wind is dead right 
for it.' Then there was silence, and some of the ob- 
servers held their breath as though the gas had caught 
their own throats and choked them. They tried to pierce 
that great bar of cloud to view the drama behind its cur- 
tain : the men caught in those fumes in terror-stricken 
flight before its advance and the sudden cry of the enemy 
trapped in their dug-outs. 

" Later, from our place of observation, there was one 
brief glimpse of the human element in this scene of im- 
personal powers and of the secret forces across the stretch 
of flat ground beyond some of those zigzag lines of 
trenches. Little things were scurrying forward. They 
were not bunched together in groups, but scattered. Some 
seemed to hesitate and then fall and lie where they fell, 
while others hurried on until they disappeared in drifting 
clouds. It was all that one could see of our infantry at- 



128 PREPAREDNESS 

tack, led by bombers. The enemy was firing a tempest of 
shells. Some of them were curiously colored, of pinkish 
hue or with orange-shaped puffs of vivid green. They 
were poison shells, giving out noxious gases. All the 
chemistry of death was poured out on both sides. Below 
it and in it our men fought with fierce valor, and in these 
fields swept by shell fire from heavy guns reached the 
enemy's trenches and earthworks for 10,000 yards." 

To combat this chemistry of death, various devices are 
borrowed from the chemistry and mechanics of life, such 
as protective helmets, which make their wearers look like 
members of the Ku Klux Klan, or official initiators into 
secret societies ; and aluminum gas-masks, which give a 
highly grotesque, ape-like appearance to their human 
wearers. 

A new weapon to fight against gas attacks is an ap- 
paratus for hurling fire-bombs into the advancing gas. 
This is described as follows : " The object of the ap- 
paratus is to cause large and rapidly spreading fires by 
means of specially designed incendiary bombs thrown in 
the path of the advancing gas at a distance of several hun- 
dred yards. By this means, since the heating of the air 
must cause an upward current, the gas, which at ordinary 
temperature is heavier than air and creeps with the wind 
along the ground, is caught in the upward current and 
driven out of harm's way." 

" Back home," also, in the warring countries, and even 
in England, instruction has been given in schools and 
elsewhere as to the nature and manufacture of chlorine 
and other " military " gases, and the best methods of 
fighting them, whether " at the front " or in case of in- 
vasion. 

After the so-called " Second Battle of Ypres," and 
after the German invasion of Poland, the Germans were 
bitterly denounced as having " lifted the lid," abrogated 
every rule of " civilized warfare," and made of them- 
selves " barbaric, slaughtering beasts." It was then, too, 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 129 

that the Polish-American Committee of Petrograd ad- 
dressed to President Wilson the following appeal : " In 
the name of God and humanity, the Polish nation ad- 
dresses to you, as President of the United States and a 
Christian, the prayer, that you will use your powerful 
influence to compel Germany at any cost to renounce the 
employment of asphyxiating gases. In a military respect 
the utility of these gases is more than doubtful ; but if 
applied henceforth they will poison our citizens, make 
the water and the crops unfit for use and poison our wells 
and cattle. The effect after the war, we believe, will be 
to cause the population to die out slowly as a consequence 
of chlorine poisoning." 

Such attacks as these brought forth vigorous articles 
in German newspapers which defended the use of gas as 
being " as humane as various other means of warfare." 
The enemies of Germany also, it is declared by the Illus- 
trierte Zeitung, are utilizing gases, to the utmost extent 
of their ability ; but, it continues, " the progress in Ger- 
man chemistry has enabled us to equip our troops with 
more effective means of defense than our enemies." It 
is argued, also, that since gases travel slowly, unless the 
wind is high, the enemy can escape it simply by evacuating 
the trenches or retreating ; that " the practice of firing 
gas projectiles can be no more objectionable than floods 
artificially produced, as was done by our enemies in 
Flanders " ; and that " continuous changes in the modes 
of warfare make constant innovations in the implements 
of war a necessity. The transformation undergone by 
the trench system influenced war technics. Whoever can 
conceive and realize the veritable purgatory of trench- 
fighting with its artillery fire, its hand grenades, its sub- 
terranean mines and the bombs from above, cannot con- 
sider a cloud of smoke, slowly approaching, more in- 
humane than any of the means enumerated." 

This German magazine's plea that " there is no plausi- 
ble reason why we should not make an ally of the atmos- 



130 PREPAREDNESS 

phere in forcing our enemies to vacate, when they resort 
to the other element [water] in battling with us," is rem- 
iniscent of Mark Twain's proposal to the German Em- 
peror to make war forever impossible by the following 
means: "Your Majesty must send to my aid the most 
eminent men of science in your realm, who shall help me 
successfully to accomplish my purpose to extract from the 
atmosphere of our earth its oxygen ; for then a general 
asphyxiation of its inhabitants will take place, and with 
universal asphyxiation we shall have universal peace." 

Despite the vigorous defense of the use of gases, put 
forth by the German press, the outside world is almost 
a unit against this use, on both physical and moral 
grounds. One scientific statement regarding it is as fol- 
lows : " The effect of this poison is not merely disabling, 
or even painlessly fatal, as suggested in the German 
press. Those of its victims who do not succumb on the 
field and who can be brought into hospital suffer acutely, 
and, in a large proportion of cases, die a painful and 
lingering death. Those who survive are in little better 
case, as the injury to their lungs appears to be of a 
permanent character, and reduces them to a condition 
which points to their being invalids for life." 

The Belgian Government described and denounced its 
use as follows : " Clouds of this gas were projected and 
descended on the trenches occupied by the Allied troops. 
The gases formed a low-lying cloud of dark-greenish 
color, which turned yellow as it streamed upward to the 
height of about lOO yards. A minute and a half after the 
gases reached them the men in the trenches were seized 
with vomiting and spat blood, their eyes and the inside 
of the mouth grew sore, and they were then stricken by 
a sort of stupor lasting for hours." 

The Bishop of Pretoria, an eye-witness of its results, 
writes concerning it : "I have just come in from visit- 
ing some of our men in a clearing-hospital at the front 
who have been ' gassed ' by this latest and most damnable 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 131 

invention of the German Imperial Staff, of which the 
Kaiser is the head. A more cruel and diabolical method 
of conducting war it would, I believe, be impossible to 
conceive. If the gas used merely knocked the men out 
for the time being, so that the Germans could walk over 
their unconscious bodies with impunity, it would be a 
sufficiently cowardly method of making war ; but when as 
a fact, in a large percentage of cases, it kills men by 
a slow and torturing death, no language that I am master 
of can express what I am convinced every man, woman 
or child would feel who saw what I have seen of the 
obvious agonies of great, fine, healthy men and lads under 
the ghastly effects of this poisonous gas. There in that 
one clearing-hospital were scores of men (and they only 
a small percentage of the total number who had been 
* gassed ') suffering in varying degrees from suffocation — 
the worst cases fighting desperately for every breath in 
ghastly pain, and many of them had been going through 
this torture for days." 

Such are a few echoes of the storm of protest that has 
greeted the use of poisonous gases. But the fact remains 
that this use is now resorted to by all the belligerents in 
the great war, that it is scientific, efficient and " ade- 
quate." Shall we, then, mobilize our chemical labora- 
tories and prepare for the war ahead of us by providing 
as efficiently as possible this kind of " adequate defense " ? 

Our Ammunition Preparedness 

Before we order the entrees and dessert, our prepared- 
ers reply, we had better look after the bread and butter, 
and piece de resistance of our preparedness. Let the 
gases, liquids and explosives wait until we have laid in a 
sufficient supply of powder and shot. 

How are we off on this initial item of ammunition? 
We must apparently be in a very bad way indeed. Gen- 
eral Wood testified last Winter before the House Com- 
mittee on Military Affairs that, " at the Battle of Muk- 



132 PREPAREDNESS 

den, the Russians expended in nine days more than 250,- 
000 rounds of ammunition. The entire yearly capacity 
of the United States," he continued, " is just that 
amount." Mukden, however, was ten years ago ; to-day, 
a single battery of French artillery is consuming in one 
day as many shells as the United States' arsenals manu- 
facture in a half-day; their 75-millimeter rifles fire as 
many as twenty-five shots a minute. A record of 500 
shots per gun per day is said to be quite ordinary. 

Few though our guns are, if they were all put in ac- 
tion, it is declared, there would not be enough ammuni- 
tion in our entire country for an engagement lasting one 
single day. Is there any wonder that our prepareders, 
contemplating battles in the Old World lasting weeks 
and campaigns lasting months, should tremble in their 
boots at thought of our unpreparedness in ammunition 
alone? We have not enough ammunition, declares Con- 
gressman Gardner, to last our coast defense guns three- 
quarters of an hour; and, he adds, " at the present rate 
of appropriations, it will take eighteen years before we 
have ammunition for our coast defense sufficient to last 
one hour ! " Mr. Hudson Maxim declares that we could 
fight only about two hours with the supply of ammuni- 
tion we have on hand, — about enough, perhaps, for prac- 
tice. 

What is "adequate" preparedness along this line? 
The new plan for Congressional action is to provide for 
an increase of nearly 500 per cent, in the amount of am- 
munition per gun, this to be manufactured and stored 
ready for use. This is far too modest a demand. 

But if, for purposes of an " adequate " supply, we 
should increase our stock by 2,500 or 3,000 per cent., how 
can our manufacturers meet such a demand? General 
Wood testified, as has been stated above, that the entire 
yearly capacity of the United States is just 250,000 rounds 
of ammunition, — the amount expended by the Russians 
a decade ago in a nine days' battle. The stimulus of the 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 133 

great war on the American manufacture of munitions has 
been responded to in most extraordinary fashion ^ ; and 
this stimulus has been felt and responded to in almost 
equal degree by the Government's arsenals. For exam- 
ple, their capacity for turning out small arms ammunition 
at the beginning of this war was about 10,000,000 rounds 
a week; this capacity, however, was cut in half by the 
impossibility of getting powder enough to load the shells. 
To-day, it is said to be possible to turn out 30,000,000 
rounds a week. 

With this increase in productive capability, it might seem 
that the fears of the prepareders would be calmed. But 
they have discovered that it has taken a whole year thus 
to transform American industries for the making of muni- 
tions, and that so far less than one per cent, of the am- 
munition used by the Allies has come from these indus- 
tries. They point out, also, that 90 per cent, of the am- 
munition manufactured in the United States, together 
with all our coal mines, the Springfield Armory Works, 
the Picatung Arsenal, where nearly all our high explo- 
sives are made, our ship-building plants, and other cen- 
ters of " preparedness," are located within a radius of 
160 miles of Peekskill, New York; and they have dis- 
covered, also, that " some foreign power could seize all 
of these within three days, and would put us at work 
running these plants for their benefit." With these es- 
tablishments captured, the " second army of defense," to 
be mobilized in the Middle West, could not be supplied, 
and the whole country would be captured. Hence, this 
section of the United States with Peekskill as its center, 
is so vitally important that it constitutes " Uncle Sam's 
Solar Plexus," and should be defended in the good old- 
fashioned way in which solar plexuses have always been 
defended. 

From another point of view, of course, the munitions 
industries in this organ of the Republic's body, may well 

^ See pages 47-59. 



134. PREPAREDNESS 

be considered " Uncle Sam's Cancer," and the proper 
mode of dealing with it to be to " cut it out," instead of 
defending it. " Adequate defense " by and of it, how- 
ever, is the present question at issue ; and it may be con- 
ceded as a possibility that if all this section's population, 
wealth, natural resources, and industrial capability were 
concentrated upon the achievement of " adequate de- 
fense," even though against a first-rate power or alliance 
of first-rate powers, in Twentieth Century warfare, the 
effort might be successful. But still the pressing ques- 
tion would arise : Would a people's life and territory so 
dedicated be really worth defending? The Federal Gov- 
ernment has begun to put its 2,000 convicts in the At- 
lanta and Fort Leavenworth penitentiaries to work on 
the manufacture of munitions of war; this would appear 
to be somewhat more in accordance with the eternal fit- 
ness of things, — though hard on the convicts. 

Projectiles 

Under this name may be briefly considered some of 
the various types of missiles which are discharged from 
a gun or cannon, or hurled by hand or some other force. 

Bombs 

Among these, the bomb has terrified the world on the 
occasion of various anarchistic outbreaks, and has been 
somewhat elaborately developed for military uses. In the 
present war, there are numerous kinds of bombs in 
use, among them the " hair-brush," the " cricket-ball," 
the " policeman's-club," and the " jam-tin." These have 
been described as follows : " The hair-brush is very like 
the ordinary hair-brush, except that the bristles are re- 
placed by a solid block of high explosives. The police- 
man's truncheon has gay streamers of tape tied to its tail 
to insure that it falls to the ground nose downward. Both 
these bombs explode on impact, and it is not advisable 
to knock them against anything, — say the back of the 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 135 

trench, — when throwing them. The cricket-ball works 
by a time fuse. The removal of a certain pin releases a 
spring which lights an internal fuse, timed to explode the 
bomb in five seconds. You take the bomb in your right 
hand, and remove the pin and cast the thing madly from 
you. The jam-tin variety appeals more particularly to 
the sportsman, as the element of chance enters largely 
into its successful use. It is timed to explode about ten 
seconds after the lighting of the fuse. It is, therefore, 
unwise to throw it too soon, as there would be ample 
time for your opponent to pick it up and throw it back. 
On the other hand it is unwise to hold on too long, as the 
fuse is uncertain in its action and is given to short cuts." 

In spite of the element of " sport " in the throwing of 
the last two kinds of bombs, their throwers are familiarly 
known in the trenches as " anarchists." The first two 
varieties of bombs are the modern variant of the Seven- 
teenth Century hand-grenades, and have restored to their 
throwers the name of " grenadiers." But, unlike the an- 
archist in time of peace and the military grenadiers of 
the olden time, our modern bomb-throwers in the trenches 
are obliged to wear, besides steel helmets and bullet-proof 
waistcoats, masks for the purpose of nullifying the effects 
of poisonous gases. 

The return to hand-throwing was due to trench-fight- 
ing at close quarters, in which guns of long range were 
useless. This trench-fighting, however, has stimulated 
the German gunmakers to devise and construct guns of 
shorter range than were ever known before. Hence, at 
the same time that they are striving to make guns with a 
range of thirty miles, they are developing guns designed 
to toss missiles containing high explosives " about as far 
as a foot-ball player can kick a goal." 

The " Minnenwerfer " and the " Rum jars " are the 
best known of these. The former were the first in the 
field, but have already been surpassed by the Rumjars a 
hundred-fold in accuracy and deadly result. These dis- 



136 PREPAREDNESS 

charge missiles which strongly resemble the one-gallon 
stone jars in which the British army's rations of rum are 
carried ; hence their name. They are of two-gallon ca- 
pacity, and are charged with tri-nitro-toluol, which is 
exploded either by a time or delayed percussion fuse. 
The explosion seems to be more instantaneous than that 
of any other projectile, and there is therefore a concen- 
trated fury in the noise of its bursting that distinguishes 
it from all other projectiles. 

Another variety of missile is known as the " Sausage," 
which is fired probably from compressed-air guns, since 
the discharge is almost inaudible. The " Percy," like 
the " Rumjar," explodes with an extraordinary crack, 
and the " Pip-squeaks " are similar, but smaller ; while 
the " Whizz-bang " is still another bomb exploded by a 
time-fuse, but thrown by hand. 

" Incendiary fire-bombs " are another product of the 
military laboratory, the component elements of which pro- 
duce sufficient heat to kindle a flame in anything that 
will burn. Phosphorus is thought to be one of these ele- 
ments, and any one struck by a fragment of these bombs 
is badly burnt as well as wounded, the burns often prov- 
ing fatal even when only a limb is struck. A Russian 
commission appointed to examine these missiles, has re- 
ported the presence of prussic acid in them, which poisons 
as well as burns. 

Shrapnel Shells 

The name of a young English officer of artillery. Col- 
onel Shrapnel, who lived and died a century ago, has 
been made by the present war a household word. The 
shrapnel shell which he invented has been developed and 
has become the main reliance of artillery, which has been 
the main reliance in the war. Its inventor observed the 
comparative ineffectiveness of solid shot, which killed or 
damaged one man only, and of the ordinary shell, which 
simply burst into a few unaimed fragments. He accord- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 137 

ingly filled the shells with bullets and added a charge of 
powder sufficient to burst the shells. Later, it was found 
that, unless the burst was exactly timed, the effect even 
of this missile was slight. Accordingly, it is now accu- 
rately regulated so that it occurs a trifle above and fifty to 
sixty yards in front of, the enemy's lines. Under these 
circumstances, it hurls a blast of bullets with deadly 
efifect. This effect has been described as follows: 
" Shrapnel does not burst into fragments like common 
explosive shell ; it has merely a sufficient charge of pow- 
der to blow its own head off and at the same time throw 
out the bullets contained in the shell casing. These have, 
naturally, the velocity of the projectile itself, together 
with the slight additional force of the bursting charge. 
These bullets scatter in a cone-shaped spray like a charge 
of shot from a shotgun. Properly bursting under all ideal 
conditions, one three-inch in diameter shrapnel from a 
field gun can disorganize a company of infantry, and 
two or three, also bursting perfectly, simply annihi- 
late it." 

All kinds of guns are used for the discharge of shrap- 
nel, and especially the howitzer, which throws a very 
heavy projectile a short distance. Dropped upon troops 
in such high-angle, howitzer fire, shrapnel is said to burst 
upon them " like a shower-bath of leaden death." 

A 1 2-inch shell, weighing about 870 pounds, carries a 
charge of thirty pounds of high explosive; the casing is 
thin and light ; the rest is bullets. Three-inch shells, man- 
ufactured in the LTnited States for use in Russia, con- 
tain 260 bullets each, and they can be made to explode 
either by impact or at any given point in their flight from 
one to twenty-two seconds. 

Thus it is seen that such projectiles are very ingenious 
pieces of mechanism, — each sometimes including as many 
as thirty pieces of mechanism, and each as accurate as a 
watch. The largest of them, — those used in the " Chubby 
Berthas," — cost $4,000 each, and each shot causes $1,000 



138 PREPAREDNESS 

damage to the lining of the guns. The smaller shells run 
from $500 down to $10 each. 

Expensive though shells are, their '' deadliness " de- 
mands their use on an enormous scale. The French ar- 
tillery is consuming a daily average of 7,000 tons. Within 
ninety minutes, in an engagement near St. Mihiel, Ger- 
man guns poured 20,000 shells of 4- to 8-inch caliber into 
one small corner of the French intrenchments ; it is small 
wonder that many of the soldiers were reported to have 
been " driven crazy by the terrific hail of shells." Within 
the first few weeks of the war, the German armies alone 
had shot off as many shells as had been fired before in all 
of human history. Their daily average in France and 
Belgium was 120,000; and the French responded with 
80,000 shells each day, while the British general de- 
manded of his government 100,000 more per day. 

" Shells, more shells, still more shells," has been the 
incessant demand from the battle-fronts ever since the 
early days of the war. It was speedily recognized that 
the war was primarily, not the soldier's, but the manu- 
facturer's job. Hence the mobilization and government 
control of the munitions plants. So successfully was this 
accomplished in France, it is reported, that the govern- 
ment has ceased to manufacture shells for their 75-milli- 
meter guns, as they now have enough on hand to fire 
100,000 rounds every day for a year. Mr. Lloyd-George 
has recently declared that the Teutons' shell-making ca- 
pacity is 250,000 daily. The British capacity is still far 
below this, in spite of a great popular outcry against the 
government's dilatoriness ; and no stone is being left un- 
turned, — even the chemical ability of women students, 
the suppression of strikes and intemperance among the 
laborers, and the curbing of the employers' greed, — to 
supply this deficiency in the sinews of war. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 139 

How Many Bombs and Shells Have We? 

Our government and manufacturers have not practised 
on a large scale, until the present war, the art of making 
bombs and shells. We have improved somewhat in this 
respect within the year. For instance, the New York 
Air Brake Co. is filling a foreign order for $30,000,000 
worth of shells. Another American firm has a contract 
for 6,000,000 shells, — 7,500 per diem. 

Such are examples of a truly enormous industry. But 
great as it is, it is wholly insufficient for the needs of a 
great war. Less than i per cent, of the Allies' ammu- 
nition has come as yet from America ; and our munitions 
factories cannot compare in productivity with those 
of Europe, — especially of Germany. We have still a 
very long road to travel before we can compete in quan- 
tity, if not in kind, with the projectile-making ability of 
our " possible " enemies. 

Shall we " prepare " by multiplying our output many 
fold, and by " going in " for all the latest death-dealing 
missiles? The expense will be considerable. The com- 
paratively simple shots from a 13-inch gun each cost us 
$1,605! How many of these shall we provide? Shall 
they be solid shot, or shrapnel, or high explosive. Benzol, 
shells ? The prepareders want us to take no chances and 
provide " adequate " quantities of all three, and of every 
new kind as it is successively invented. 

Will our moral standard, as well as our pocket-book, 
stand for this ? An automatic machinery company in our 
Middle West, which advertised the sale of machinery for 
making " poisonous acid shells which make those struck 
to die in agony," brought down upon itself a stern public 
rebuke from the Secretary of Commerce, who wrote to 
it as follows : " It is, I confess, difficult for me to under- 
stand how any one who was not callous in a high degree 
could have drafted such a statement for publication with 
a view to selling his own wares. If, as has been sug- 



140 PREPAREDNESS 

gested, your thought was to horrify people with the war, 
no suggestion of such a purpose appears in the advertise- 
ment itself. On the contrary, you urge the cruel and 
agonizing nature of the death caused hy certain missiles 
as an evidence of their effectiveness, and suggest this as 
the basis of a sale for the machines which make these 
hideous things. At a time when every instinct of patriot- 
ism calls for calm and self-restraint, when sobriety of 
statement is almost a supreme duty, you, as you admit, 
to gain notice to an advertisement, draw a picture of 
human misery as a means of earning a profit through the 
sales of machines to produce it." 

This sounds like the humanity which we love to asso- 
ciate with America ; but if we are thus to permit " moral 
squeamishness " to stand in the way of making " effi- 
cient " weapons, what is to become of " adequate pre- 
paredness"? And if we prepare "adequately," what is 
to become of our moral standards, — especially when we 
get what we prepare for? 

G. FORTIFICATIONS 

From the day that a Stone Age man hurled the first 
projectile at his human foe, the science and art of forti- 
fication have endeavored to keep pace with the science 
and art of projectiles and explosives. Every land, our 
own included, is strewn with the ruins of " impreg- 
nable " fortresses, which some new " irresistible " pro- 
jectile has made useless and deserted. 

Inland Forts 

Our own problem of inland fortification has been a 
relatively simple one, since we have never had to cope 
with a real foe, " worthy of our mettle," in this favored 
hemisphere. But from the days of the Colonial block- 
house to the present, we have built many forts to resist 
or subdue the Indians. For more than a century, our 
Federal government has been establishing scores of army 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 141 

posts upon " the frontier," and with the progress of the 
frontier westward, our " forts '' and army posts have 
followed the retreating Indian, until about 150 of them 
were built across the continent from New York to San 
Francisco. The Secretary of War has declared that 
forty-one of these are absolutely useless, so far as our 
Indian or any other " enemy " is concerned. 

The value of these posts to the communities among 
which they are located is so great, — in the way of sup- 
plying a local market, " putting money into circulation," 
etc., — that it has been found impossible to abolish them. 
For example, the Secretary of War has shown that $6,- 
000,000 has been spent during a decade on two absolutely 
useless posts in Wyoming, and that more than $5,000,000 
per annum could be readily saved by abolishing them and 
some others equally useless ; but the political power of 
the congressional " pork barrel " is such that this meas- 
ure of simple economy has thus far been successfully 
opposed. It has been shown, also, that the long distances 
at which these posts are separated from each other make 
speedy concentration of the regular army very difficult; 
and since only six of them can accommodate more than 
one regiment, and only one a brigade, the much desired 
team-work on the part of the army and its subdivisions 
is made impossible. 

But so far from abolishing such posts, a movement is 
now on foot, — promoted by the preparedness campaign, 
— to establish large sections of the army in fortified posts 
at the " strategic centers " of the country. These are 
not designed, of course, as preparedness against the In- 
dians, but as preparedness against any foreign foe who 
may attempt to land upon our coasts and conquer our 
land. The mountain-crests and passes of the Alle- 
ghanies, the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas; the val- 
leys of the rivers which flow into the Atlantic, the Gulf 
and the Pacific; the lakes and forests and plains of our 
great continental domain, open up fascinating vistas of 



142 PREPAREDNESS 

opportunity to the military strategist ; and he assures 
us that " impregnable " forts like those of Verdun and 
Helgoland are absolutely needed to prepare us against 
invasion and conquest by our Japanese, German or Brit- 
ish foes. What could these foes not do to us, swarming 
across the Pacific, the Sierras and the Rockies, into the 
Great Plains ; or across the Atlantic and the AUeghanies 
into the fertile valley of the Ohio and the teeming lands 
of the Central West ; or across the Great Lakes and 
down the Mississippi into " the heart of the Continent "? 

We have already expended within the last few years 
$13,000,000 in defending Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and 
among its defenses we have utilized an extinct volcano, 
known as Diamond Head, by fortifying it and equipping 
it with four mortars which have a range of from six to 
nine miles. How many and wonderful are the natural 
opportunities for effective fortifications and efficient 
bases of operation in almost every nook and corner of 
our continental as well as island possessions ! 

Why should we not prepare, and prepare " ade- 
quately," along this line of infinite possibilities? 

Moving Forts 

But nothing that is stationary is worth much in these 
stirring times. Forts should not wait to be attacked; 
like warships upon the sea, they should be foot-loose and 
seek out the enemy wherever he is to be found, and 
then hammer him until he stops fighting. 

That is what is being done in this greatest of wars in 
Europe. Railroads are no longer merely means of 
transporting men and supplies ; they are now the means 
of conveying forts. These forts are trains of heavily 
armored cars, loop-holed for rifles, machine-guns and 
rapid-fire guns of large caliber mounted on pivots or on 
revolving turrets. They serve admirably as posts for 
sharpshooters, who can fire from them in such shelters 
as railroad cuts ; or can dash out in support of a retreat- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 143 

ing column of soldiers and turn defeat into victory, as 
was done repeatedly near Nieupoort, Belgium. They 
can even elude the fire of big guns, by moving rapidly to 
and fro upon the tracks ; for these " land-going iron- 
clads " have more than the speed and much of the effec- 
tiveness of battle cruisers. They are still in their infancy, 
and great possibilities lie before them. 

What could America not do along this line of prepared- 
ness, with the greatest railway system in the world? 
Fancy how we could build and equip our freight and 
passenger cars, and our trolley-cars as well, so that they 
could be recruited in time of need as moving fortresses 
throughout the length and breadth of country, town and 
city! 

Unfortunately, such moving forts as these can travel 
only on the rails. But they have been supplemented by 
forts which can travel on every highway or country 
road. The armored automobile has sprung full-fledged 
into existence during the present war, and is being used 
with great military effectiveness. Manufactured or 
bought by thousands, and equipped with armor plate for 
'the protection of their vitals, and with machine-guns 
for an attack on the vitals of the enemy, they have been 
sent forth on their death-dealing mission singly or in 
troops. Working independently, like the panoplied 
knight-errant of old ; or cooperating in flocks, or shoals, 
like troops of giant cavalrymen, or like chains of mov- 
ing forts, they have engaged in many kinds of attack 
and defense, and have rivalled the exploits of Richard 
of the Lion's Heart. 

America, with its marvellous facilities for leading the 
world in armored automobiles, and with its continental 
stretches of roadway, will surely not be left behind on 
this item of the preparedness programme ! Already, we 
have listened to the appeal, or responded to the chal- 
lenge ; for the Army Bill in the last Congress carried an 
appropriation of $50,000 for one armored motor car. 



144f PREPAREDNESS 

This is, of course, only a beginning, though a somewhat 
expensive one. But patience, patience ; with proper ma- 
nipulation of popular fear and congressional log-rolling, 
we can yet fill our land, or roads, with armored, and 
therefore truly useful, automobiles. What clouds of jit- 
neys, touring and de luxe autos would our manufac- 
turers not build for Uncle Sam's safety? Nay, more, 
why should not every private individual who owns an 
automobile be required to provide it with armor and a 
machine-gun so as to be able to respond at once, like the 
minute-men of Concord and Lexington, to the call to 
arms? Away with the foolish and unpatriotic objection 
that automobiles, unarmored, are already sufficiently 
deadly to our own population ! If we are going to pre- 
pare for war, and to prepare adequately, let us get down 
to business! 

Coast FortiUcations 

But why talk about the inland fortifications of our 
country ? They would be needed only in case our enemy 
should land upon our shores ; and this he must not be 
permitted to do. Our navy, as the first line of defense, 
must surely stop him; and if that fails to do so, our 
coast fortifications must beat him oflf. 

Our Deficiencies in Forts 

Our " coast " fortifications, however, do not really 
defend our coasts ; the utmost they can do is to defend 
some of our harbors, — the harbors of our principal sea- 
ports. The strips of coast which they " protect " are 
not more than fifteen to twenty miles in length, — about 
200 miles in all, a military expert testified last winter 
before a congressional committee. Before that same 
committee, an admiral declared that he saw no reason 
why a foreign foe could not land on any foot of our 
American sea-coast. Two hundred miles protected, — 
after a fashion ; three thousand miles along the Atlantic, 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 145 

and some five thousand miles on the Gulf and the Pacific, 
to say nothing of four thousand miles of frontier on the 
British-Canadian border, still to be protected ! The out- 
look is sufficiently gloomy. 

Our prepareders have grappled with the problem. 
After the hundreds upon hundreds of millions invested 
during past years in forts, obsolete or obsolescent, our 
congress was induced last year to appropriate $6,000,000 
for coast fortifications. This is a mere drop in the 
bucket. One fort now building at Los Angeles is to cost 
more than $3,000,000. The new plan provides for build- 
ing another fort at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay to 
protect the passage between Capes Henry and Charles, — 
which leads up to Baltimore and Washington; and for 
the appropriation of $20,000,000 a year for four years, 
to go as far as it can towards protecting the rest of the 
coast. One-fourth of the $80,000,000, however, is to go 
towards defending our unprotected island possessions 
and naval bases in some such way as we have protected 
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This last cost $13,000,000; how 
far would $20,000,000 go in defending the rest of our 
island family and Alaska? Four years are a long, long 
time, if the Germans or the Japanese are to land upon 
our shores to-morrow. 

How much can we do, in four years and with $60,- 
000,000, for the continental United States? How much 
did the " impregnable " fortresses of Liege, Namur or 
Antwerp cost? Though we should get really impregna- 
ble fortresses for protecting another small fraction of 
our enormous coast-line, our experts insist that there 
is nothing to hinder a strong enemy from landing else- 
where on our coast and capturing our big cities by march- 
ing inland to their rear. 

Our Deficiencies in Personnel 

Even the number of coast fortifications at present in 
our possession are woefully under-manned. The Regu- 



146 PREPAREDNESS 

lar Coast Artillery Corps is short 612 officers and 10,988 
enlisted men. The new plan provides for the enlistment 
of 10,000 more. But the Regulars man only one-half 
the guns, and depend on the Coast Artillery Militia to do 
the rest. The shortage in the Coast Artillery Militia is 
299 officers and 11,409 enlisted men. The seacoast States 
have been urged by many and varied inducements to 
make up this deficiency; but despite this effort, the de- 
ficiency was greater last year than it was the year before. 

This shortage is based, moreover, only on peace condi- 
tions; in time of war, not less than two complete man- 
ning bodies would be required, and the shortage would 
be far greater. Three bodies, working eight hours each, 
is the experts' desired minimum. How are these men 
to be secured, and, more especially, how are they to be 
properly trained for their difficult, highly professional 
duties? 

Again, to protect coast fortifications against sudden 
land raids. Coast Artillery Supports are necessary. 
These are ordinarily drawn from the " mobile army " ; 
but our mobile army is itself wofully deficient. Again, 
our fortifications outside of the United States must be 
manned entirely, and not only one-half, by the Coast 
Artillery Regulars; the insular fortifications now ready 
for garrisons will still further deplete our home Regu- 
lars and leave them about equal to one-third of one relief. 
It would appear, then, that for " adequate " prepared- 
ness along this line, we should increase the personnel of 
our coast defenses by at least 40,000 men. — this with 
our present fortifications. When we get an " adequate " 
number of fortifications, no man can say how many thou- 
sands or hundreds of thousands of coast defense men 
we shall require. 

Island Fortifications and Naval Bases 

But why wait for the enemy to attack our coast forti- 
fications at home? Let us prepare to waylay him in 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 147 

the Pacific or Atlantic on his way across the ocean. And 
let us not keep our fleet only in its home-ports, but send 
it out in great, crushing divisions to our naval bases, so 
that it can reach the enemy fleet in cruises of not more 
than 2,000 miles in radius. 

In the Pacific, we have four points from which, at 
2,000-mile cruises, we can " command the ocean." These 
are at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii ; Unalaska, Alaska ; Samoa ; 
and Guam. By the expenditure of $13,000,000 we have 
built up a fairly respectable base at the first of these. 
Let us do the same at the other three points, and we 
may feel reasonably prepared, — except in so far as 
trained men, big enough guns and plenty of ammunition 
are concerned. Let us remember, however, that unless we 
supply these deficiencies at Pearl Harbor and prevent 
their occurrence at the other bases, the Japanese might 
seize and utilize for themselves these " impregnable " 
fortresses, even as the Fortress of Malta was manned 
by just enough men to open its gates to the enemy. 

In the Atlantic, we have made a beginning with Guan- 
tanamo and the Panama Zone, and can experiment with 
Porto Rico and, — if we can get them from Denmark, — 
with St. Thomas and St. John ; but we are obviously in 
dire need of more naval bases in the Southern, Northern 
and Eastern Atlantic, and in the Southwestern Pacific, 
if we are to be " adequately " prepared for the defense 
of our own country, our island possessions, and the Mon- 
roe Doctrine against a " victorious " Great Britain or 
Germany. 

The Problem of Big Guns 

Twenty-nine years ago, some experiments were made 
at Fort Malmaison, in France, which proved that the best 
" impregnable " fortifications erected up to that time 
were obsolete. Their walls and works were destroyed 
with " laughable ease " by 8-inch shells charged with the 
new high explosive known as " melinite." The question 



148 PREPAREDNESS 

then arose : On which shall we bet our money, — on 
"impregnable" forts or on "irresistible" projectiles? 

The French and Belgians went in for the forts, the 
Germans for the projectiles. The best engineers of 
France and Belgium built those forts which were re- 
garded as an eighth wonder of the world, — at Belfort, 
Toul and Verdun, Liege, Antwerp and Namur. The 
best that concrete walls from six to ten feet thick, and 
armor plate of similar or greater thickness, could pro- 
vide, was lavishly provided, and France and Belgium 
confidently awaited the issue. 

Meanwhile, the Germans developed their guns from 
8-inch to i6>^-inch and their howitzers to 175^-inch, 
and they learned how to move them and to move them 
fast ; they developed their shells, also, to weights of more 
than a ton, and filled them with new and improved high 
explosives. The test came in 1914 at Liege and Namur, 
and the projectile was shown to have won the race, — and 
the battle. As in 1886, the forts were utterly demolished, 
their armor plate and concrete walls were cracked into 
fragments, their massive embankments were pulverized. 
At Liege, while the guns were getting warmed and lim- 
bered up, the forts lasted two days, at Namur they lasted 
five hours ! 

In another great fortress, at Maubeuge, in France, a 
garrison of 3,000 soldiers essayed to defend it ; the Ger- 
mans hurled a few shells from a 42-centimeter gun upon 
it, and 200 Frenchmen more dead than alive survived 
to creep out of the hole which was all that was left of 
the fort. 

With the example of Belgium and Maubeuge before 
them, the French determined to pin their faith, not to 
their " impregnable " forts, but to intrenchments and 
other things, especially big guns. 

How " impregnable," then, must our forts be to with- 
stand the " Chubby Berthas " and other big guns, femi- 
nine and masculine, that might be trained against them? 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 149 

The eight 15-inch guns of the British battle cruiser. 
Queen Elisabeth, for example, are reported by one of 
our military experts and ardent prepareders to be able 
to begin at the Battery and wipe out New York City up 
to Fourteenth street, while the cruiser lies at Rockaway 
Beach entirely out of range of the guns in New York's 
forts ; or, this cruiser and any of the German first-line 
ships, " could lie off Nahant and, without coming under 
the fire of a single gun from shore, could destroy the 
navy-yard at Charlestown and as much of Boston as sur- 
rounds it." 

Most of our coast defense guns are 12-inch, which have 
an effective range of 13,000 yards, as against an effective 
range of 21,000 yards possessed by our opponents; 
hence, another expert declares, "the most modern ships 
could anchor several thousand yards [or more than four 
miles] outside the range of our coast-defense guns and 
proceed to silence our batteries, unmolested and with 
great deliberation." 

We have a few 14-inch guns in our insular possessions, 
and one 16-inch gun for the protection of the Panama Ca- 
nal. The new plan is to provide us with two more 16-inch 
guns ; and to remount the 12-inch guns so that their max- 
imum elevation can be increased from 10° to 15°, and 
thus increase their range from 13,000 to 20,000 yards. 
This will cost a very large sum of money, and will ne- 
cessitate the use of a lighter shell than that now carried, 
which is only 700 pounds. Can such projectiles, fired 
three miles up in the air so as to enable them to carry 
20,000 yards, be considered " adequate " defense against 
projectiles weighing more than a ton with an extreme 
range of 24,000 yards and an effective one of 21,000? 

A half-year after the war began, the Secretary of War 
asked for an appropriation, for strengthening our coast 
defenses, of $40,000,000 ; but during that half-year, the 
superiority of the modern gun to the modern fort was 
established, and the experts sent forth their verdict as 



150 I'REPAREDNESS 

follows : " The day of concrete and iron has passed away. 
Closed works must be replaced by open earthwork re- 
doubts massively built, connected together with over- 
head cover, and so devised as to admit of rapid impro- 
vised extension to meet the ever-changing conditions of 
attack." 

That is to say, the fort-makers are going to do their 
best to " come back " and continue their world-old con- 
test with the gun-makers. Meanwhile, the greatest war in 
history is going on and with it the application of ever 
new discoveries in chemical science and mechanic arts. 
Meanwhile, also, the development of air-craft and high 
explosives may make the most " irresistible " gun and 
the most " impregnable " fortress as antiquated in war- 
fare as are now the sling-shot and the tree-trunk. It 
may soon be almost as far to look back through a series 
of new devices to the steel-and-concrete fort and the 16- 
inch gun, as it is now to look through anchored and float- 
ing mines, automobile and wireless torpedoes, aeroplane 
scouts and defenses of the inner harbor and passage-way, 
back to the once " impregnable " booms, or chains of logs 
and iron. 

H. UNDERGROUND PREPAREDNESS 

Submarine warfare in our time is matched by subter- 
rain. The prime requisite of the soldier in the present 
war, as in the days of Julius Caesar, is to dig, and the 
second is to hide. It has remained for war, not peace, 
to beat swords into spades and spears into pick-axes. Na- 
tions, precipitating the war to secure a place " in the 
sun," have sent their soldiers into the trenches and 
made of them moles and ground-hogs, burrowing and 
living underground. " Burrozv on to Berlin or to Paris," 
is the slogan in this war of spades and picks. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 151 

Intrenchments 

The old-time rifle-pits, or trenches three feet deep, 
with the earth thrown up in front of them to protect 
riflemen or skirmishers, have been utterly eclipsed by 
the trenches of today, which are the apotheosis of the 
trenches of our own Civil War and of the Russo-Japa- 
nese War of a decade ago. '' Intrenching," " digging 
yourself in," is one of the primary arts of war, not only 
in siege operations, but in the field as well. Not " throw- 
ing up," but " digging down " and " digging in," are the 
watchwords of our time. Indeed, a battlefield today 
is declared by an eye-witness to be " distinguishable from 
any other stretch of ground by there being no soldiers 
visible on it. Movements of troops near the front have 
to be made mostly at night, and in the day-time the 
scene of conflict looks like the interior of the crater of 
Mauna Loa, — a torn and barren plain with here and 
there a volcanic eruption." 

In the olden times, a city was besieged ; now, a country 
is besieged. Hence, intrenchment is undertaken on a large 
and complicated scale. The line of intrenchments in 
France and Flanders, extending from the mountains of 
Switzerland to the North Sea, measures 420 miles in 
length, not counting its minor twists and turns and par- 
allels. The Russo-German line is at least 500 miles in 
length. This line is not a single, but a double, and 
in most places a triple, line of trenches, one behind the 
other, so that if the first be taken, the others may be 
fallen back upon. Multiplying these 920 miles by two, 
for the two opposing lines, we have 1,840 miles; and 
multiplying these by three, for the three lines of trenches, 
we have 5,520 miles. Adding to these, 800 miles which 
the Germans have dug in Eastern Belgium and along the 
Rhine, 400 dug in Eastern England and along the Suez 
Canal against a possible invasion, 100 dug by the Aus- 
trians and Italians along the Isonzo, and 200 dug in 



152 PREPAREDNESS 

Southern Bulgaria and various other parts of the battle- 
stage, we have approximately 7,000 miles of trenches. To 
these must be added, also, about two miles of communi- 
cation trenches, through which forces are brought for- 
ward in safety to the firing trenches, for ever}- mile of 
trenches on the front ; thus we have a total of some 8,800 
miles. 

A single trench this long would reach from San Fran- 
cisco to New York, across the Atlantic to London, to 
Paris, to Berlin and on to Petrograd. If the war con- 
tinues a few months longer, man will have dug himself 
around the globe. In the light of these sub-lunar achieve- 
ments, it is suggested that the " canals " on Mars are 
really intrenchments in which the Martians have dug 
themselves in. 

Since the average trench is six feet deep and five feet 
wide at the top, it is estimated that, with dugouts and 
traverses, two cubic yards of earth have been removed 
for every yard of trench. The German share of this 
digging is estimated to be equivalent to the Great Wall 
of China, the Germans having dug for fourteen months, 
and the Chinese built for ten years. If all the armies 
dig as well in the next six years as they have dug in the 
last one, they will have dug an equivalent of the Panama 
Canal, in half the time required for that greatest of ,^ngi- 
neering tasks. 

Underground Quarters 

The firing trenches, which are in some places as many 
as eighteen feet deep, but very narrow, are connected 
with each other by means of underground tunnels, which 
are made much wider for the movement of troops and 
supplies, and for the " quarters " of the men at the front. 
These " quarters " have taken the place of the romantic 
bivouac of olden times, with its rows of little tents, out- 
posts and sentry-guards. They are commodious cav- 
erns, fortified in many places on roof and walls with 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 153 

metal and concrete, and containing at least some of the 
comforts of the barracks, but lacking the greatest of all, 
namely, sunlight and fresh air. In those most up-to-date 
are to be found kitchens, dining-rooms, stables, cow- 
sheds ; one boasts a bathroom ; another, a phonograph, 
which since the quarters are connected by telephones, 
may be heard all down the line. Since aeroplane scouts 
abound, these quarters are concealed as carefully as pos- 
sible by means of earth and dead or growing crops. 
Their occupants do not see the light of the sun for days 
at a time. Some of then are drained ; but rainy weather 
brings to most of them indescribable misery and hard- 
ships. 

Mines and Counter-Mines 

This extraordinary development of trench-warfare has 
not crowded out the old-fashioned mining and counter- 
mining, but, on the contrary has given a great impulse to 
it. Deep narrow ditches, known as " saps " are dug at 
an angle from the trenches towards the enemy's works. 
These saps are completely underground, of course, until 
at the sap-head, — advanced at times to within four yards 
of the enemy's trenches, — the grenadiers burst through 
the crust of earth and hurl their grenades or bombs at 
their opponents. The ground is fairly honey-combed with 
zig-zags and parallels, advanced by both sides, and the 
mines and counter-mines form a veritable labyrinth in 
which the sappers and miners often lose their way and 
their lives. 

The development of high explosives has given to mines 
and counter-mines an enormous increase of efificiency 
in the blowing up of forts, intrenchments and quarters. 
The " Western Zone of War," about ten miles in width 
and extending from the Channel to the German frontier 
near Basle, with its hundreds of houses, barns and vil- 
lages destroyed and the very landscape itself scarred and 



154j preparedness 

seamed, bears eloquent testimony to the volcanic action 
of these mining operations. 

Our Underground Preparedness 

What are our present facilities for engaging success- 
fully in the enormous activities of the underground war- 
fare of our time? How many and what facilities must 
we have to be " adequately " prepared on this item of 
the military programme? 

Well, we are told by our military experts that if our 
entire field force in the regular army were ordered into 
the trenches, they could man a single line about fourteen 
miles long; then, if we sent our entire militia in after 
them, we could extend this single line to sixty-five miles. 
New York City alone has a circumference of about one 
hundred miles ; and there are a good many cities and 
towns in these United States outside of New York City. 
The rule of our Civil War, a half-century ago, prescribed 
5,000 men for every mile ; with our 1 50,000 men we 
might live up to this rule for thirty miles. To intrench 
for 420 miles, the length of the intrenchments on the 
French and Belgian frontier, — we should require 2,100,- 
000 men, and this is according to the rule of a half-cen- 
tury ago. 

The training of this vast host for effective " digging 
in," and for effective fighting from and in the trenches 
and mines would be no holiday pastime. Trench war- 
fare in our day, with its use of trench guns and mortars, 
its grenades and bombs, its endurance of unparalleled 
hardships and miseries, can scarcely be prepared for by 
the antiquated manual of arms and " maneuvring " which 
our coddled militiamen and volunteers regard as the sum 
and substance of a " military training." 

Men, however, are only one of many items in the pro- 
gramme of intrenchment. Steam-shovels, concrete, steel, 
catacomb dwellings, — what an endless vista of " pre- 
paredness " opens up on this line ! What a magnificent 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 155 

series of intrenchments might we not prepare for along 
the Great Lakes and our countless rivers, — even as the 
bloody Mazurian Lakes between Russia and Germany, 
and the Aisne, the Marne and the Yser Rivers in France 
and Belgium have afforded splendid opportunities for 
" water trenches " ! Even little Holland has equipped 
itself with a system of trenches which, if captured by the 
enemy, can be converted into deep-flooded ditches, — a 
hindrance rather than an aid to the advancing foe. 
Surely mighty America should do as much. And surely, 
with our matchless field for intrenchment around half a 
thousand cities, and across our continental domain, over 
valley and plain and mountain, our prepareders upon the 
land are as fortunate as are our prepareders upon the 
sea and in the air, with their unequalled opportunity of 
two mighty oceans washing our shores and a heaven of 
atmosphere above us ! 

I. SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL PREPAREDNESS 

The warfare of our time absorbs the energies of entire 
nations. The fighting and fighters " at the front," al- 
though more spectacular than those " back home," are 
only of temporary importance, — like the trigger that fires 
the gun. The nation itself must supply the gun and the 
ammunition and replace the broken trigger. Hence, 
" military efficiency " as Germany has taught it to the 
world, and as we must learn it if we are to prepare for 
successful war, means the creation, organization and mo- 
bilization of the entire people. 

This " fundamental preparedness " is, of course, a 
gigantic task and has innumerable factors. Its scope 
can only be indicated here, and only a few of its factors 
referred to. 

Physical Preparedness 

There is no possible reason or excuse for " race sui- 
cide " among a people bent on " adequate " prepared- 



156 PREPAREDNESS 

ness. The fathers and mothers of the race should not 
only " raise their boys to be soldiers," but should raise 
plenty of them. Nor are boys only needed as " food 
for powder " ; the girls, too, can play a most worthy part 
in war, for example, as " war brides," as industrial work- 
ers, even in Amazonian regiments if necessity demand. 

Even Germany, with her relatively large population, is 
in peril of being beaten in the present war by the mere 
force of physical attrition. Enough boys do not reach 
the " fighting age " of fifteen or fourteen years to fill 
the gaps in the ranks of their elders. The United States, 
with a territory seventeen times larger than that of the 
German Empire and a population only one-third larger, 
should increase its birth-rate and immigration many fold 
to be as relatively prepared as is Germany. Texas alone 
could accommodate one-fourth more people than Ger- 
many does, and Alaska nearly three times as many ! 
How thrilling to think of the 1,200,000,000 people whom 
we could accommodate in the United States, — in ade- 
quate preparedness for the war that confronts us ! 

These teeming millions must be thoroughly well de- 
veloped in stature, muscle and sinew, for we must send 
no mollycoddles to the front when the great test comes. 
Hence the pressing need of gymnastic and athletic train- 
ing. Turn-vereins must spring up, as thick as hops, to 
vie with our colleges and Y.M.C.A.'s in turning out 
tall and muscular men and women. 

Medicine, hygiene and sanitation, above all, the most 
scientific of marriage laws, must be developed and dras- 
tically applied, so that weaklings shall be reduced to a 
minimum and stronglings shall increase and multiply. 
A wise charity, preferably administered by the State, 
must prevent wasteful weakness and death from snatch- 
ing from the State the able soldiers whom it may so 
sorely need. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 157 

Moral Preparedness 

Believing that there never have been and never can 
be genuine moral equivalents for v^ar and military train- 
ing, the State to be adequately prepared must cultivate 
in its citizens the virtues of the fine old military profes- 
sion, — the profession that doth most befit true men. 

Implicit obedience and the willingness to " stay put " ; 
brute courage that knows no fear; callousness to human 
suffering, whether of one's enemies, one's family or one's 
self; the ability to steal and lie without being caught, 
which marked the good soldier of Sparta, and which is 
still of use ; these and a score of other martial virtues 
rush to our memories and clamor to be reckoned in with 
adequate preparedness. 

Such semi-martial virtues, also, as industry, which 
enables the people to pay taxes for military purposes, 
and thrift, which enables them to save money and lend 
it to the government in time of war ; these and various 
others must by no means be neglected. 

As to the other virtues, especially those inculcated by 
the Christian standard of morality, — such as humility, 
meekness, purity, mercy, peace-making, — they may be 
tolerated, provided they do not interfere with adequate 
preparedness; if they do, — to the lions with them! 

Mental Preparedness 

Knowledge is power, especially military power; brains 
are better than bullets ; intellect can be more deadly than 
either muscle or morals. Hence the necessity of a proper, 
that is to say, a practical and military, system of educa- 
tion. Like the boys of Sparta, the youth of to-day should 
be trained in the science and art of warfare, from their 
early infancy up. Indeed, the State should take them 
over at birth and see to it that they are brought up to be 
truly adequate soldiers. 

Martial literature, like "The Hymn of Hate";— 



158 PREPAREDNESS 

patriotic history, like Von Treitschke's ; a common-sense, 
materialistic philosophy, like that of Frederick the Great 
and Nietzsche : such should be the backbone of a men- 
tal training that is adequate for preparedness. 

Above all, the physical sciences of chemistry, physics, 
mechanics, should be strenuously pursued and devoted to 
the discovery of the most efficient gases, explosives, pro- 
jectiles, and every possible device and vehicle for deal- 
ing wounds, stupor, death. Laboratories at home, in the 
barracks, with the armies on the march and in the field, 
should be equipped and administered for their prime duty 
of preserving and increasing the fighting effectiveness of 
their own soldiers, and of putting the enemy under the 
sod. 

Economic Preparedness 

The equipment of the modern army on the battle-front 
with all the necessaries of living and killing is a large 
and complicated task and requires efficient organization 
of mobilization and distribution. Some idea of this task 
is gained from the following excerpts from a letter writ- 
ten by a captain of British cavalry, " somewhere in 
France," to his father : 

" Next to the destructiveness of the thing, what most 
amazes me is the number of non-combatants required to 
transport, to supply, to connect generally, and to pro- 
vide and equip the comparatively small fighting line. 
Every road between the coast and the trenches hums 
with motor transport, every base is the centre of converg- 
ing lines of supplies, every trench, every regimental, every 
brigade, every divisional, every army corps headquar- 
ters is connected and linked up with field telephones, 
motor bicyclists and motor cars. In fact, far more men 
in uniform are seen behind than in the actual fighting 
line, and what is satisfactory is that the whole machine 
appears to work admirably. It is a very different prob- 
lem to tackle from the South African war. Here each 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 159 

battle is a prolonged bombardment of a series of care- 
fully prepared positions; all the appliances of twentieth 
century civilization can be brought to work and the re- 
sult is good." 

The Secondary Army of Invasion 

This " army of workers " constitutes in fact a genuine 
secondary army of invasion. The primary army is, of 
course, down in the trenches, behind the batteries, or 
traveling at breakneck speed in motor-omnibuses along 
deep-rutted highways from one sector of the battle-line 
to the next. The secondary army, without which the 
former would be worthless, follows on behind. It is less 
daring, and practically immobile. Little is heard of it, 
but its work goes on constantly, at top speed. When it 
is considered that an army is in need of thousands of 
supplies of many different sorts, from pork sausage to 
mended auto tires, many of them requiring experts at 
manufacturing or repairing, the importance of this sec- 
ondary army of skilled artizans can be better appreciated. 
Behind the German line these supply-centers, or Haupt- 
punkte, are established with exceeding care and thor- 
oughness. In some places a whole French town is con- 
verted into an army depot, supplying the line for per- 
haps several miles on either side. 

Food Supply 

The army itself depends mainly upon meat and bread. 
Fresh meat is demanded, and herds of cattle have be- 
come regular camp-followers; but the salting, pickling 
and canning departments are of great importance. The 
United States learned in 1898, in the days of the " em- 
balmed beef panic," the vital importance of solving for 
the army the meat problem which in our war with Spain 
caused far more deaths than did Spanish bullets. The 
vital importance of providing such delicacies as beer, 
whisky and other beverages, is illustrated by the fact 



160 PREPAREDNESS 

that the British government has procured and stored for 
the use of its army 20,000,000 pounds of tea. 

The efficient production, organization and economical 
distribution of food supplies, among the population at 
home, as a prime means of military preparedness, has 
taken on immense significance in the present war. The 
utilization of every existing foodstuff, and the inven- 
tion and production of new kinds, or of substitutes for 
old kinds which may grow scarce ; government control 
and distribution; the issuing of meal tickets, etc., are 
examples of what " preparedness " means, so far as the 
food-supply is concerned. 

Shelter and Fuel 

As an illustration of what is meant in the provision of 
shelter for the huge armies in the modern field of battle, 
may be mentioned the fact that 50,000 portable wooden 
houses, 12 feet x 30 feet, each containing three rooms, 
are being constructed for the winter campaign of the 
Russian soldiers. 

These afford much better shelter than did the old- 
time army tent; but the activity of Zeppelins and aero- 
planes makes life in even such homes very precarious. 
Hence we should prepare to make " cyclone cellars " or 
underground homes for our army in the field, as the 
Italians and Austrians are doing in the campaign before 
Gorizia. The kind of homes needed for trench-fighting, 
as shelters against airships, shrapnel, etc., has already 
been indicated. 

The Age of Electricity 

Since the old-time camp-fires are far more dangerous 
in these days of aeroplane scouts and bombs than they 
were even in the days of Indian warfare, the problem 
of fuel and heat is a serious one. Fortunately, we live 
in an electrical age, and electricity is utilized for heat, 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 161 

light, power, telephone and wireless communication, and 
even for killing. 

Wire fences, highly charged with electricity, are al- 
ready in use for sentinel purposes, and are capable of 
being prepared for trench-fighting as well. The war is 
carried on by relays of night and day shifts, and the 
field of operations is lighted up at night by means of 
powerful search-lights. These lights are made speedily 
available by being mounted on swift motor-cars, or on 
collapsible towers of considerable height. A great va- 
riety of them have already been developed, both for light- 
ing up the battlefield and for detecting the night-raids of 
airships. 

The United States has made a beginning on this line 
of preparedness by installing at the end of the Panama 
Canal four great search-lights which send their rays 
about twelve miles out to sea; but what a world of 
preparedness of this kind lies before us yet to con- 
quer. 

Motor Transportation 

War-automobiles, both for attack and defense and for 
transportation, are as thick on the battle-front of to-day 
as are autos and motor-trucks on Broadway. Not only 
must they be innumerable, but they must also be armored 
for protection against bullets and airship bombs, pro- 
vided with port-holes for rifle-fire, and mounting a 
machine-gun. For such purposes as scouting and swift 
attack and pursuit, the conveying of wireless and light- 
ing apparatus, of aeroplane-destroyers, kitchen and hos- 
pital outfits, periscopes and reconnaissance outfits, the 
automobile is of immense military value. The motor- 
cycle, with an emergency speed of fifty miles an hour, is 
a fine adjunct to the automobile, especially for the bear- 
ing of orders. 

The United States has begun to test the motor-cycle 
as a military asset by holding a trans-continental race; 



162 PREPAREDNESS 

and it has developed a few squadrons of armored auto- 
mobiles. General Wood has sounded the alarm for this 
kind of preparedness, also, and advocates not only the 
increase of government-owned automobiles, but also the 
enlistment and organization of the hundreds of thousands 
of private automobile owners, who with the five or six 
friends accompanying them in each car, could be given 
an " auto military training." Here is another endless 
field for preparedness which may be supposed to appeal 
especially to the sporting instincts of the American peo- 
ple. 

The building of good roads and of concrete bridges 
capable of sustaining motor-trucks and their heavy loads, 
is considered of even more pressing importance for pre- 
paredness than for the piping times of peace. 

Horses 

Armored automobiles and aeroplanes are rapidly tak- 
ing the place of the old-time cavalry for scouting pur- 
poses and for swift attack and pursuit ; and thus, in 
war as in peace, the horseless vehicle and the horseless 
knight are antiquating the charger and the steed that 
snuffs the scent of battle. That former president of the 
United States who declared in a letter to the American 
Legion that, " in the event of war I should ask permis- 
sion of Congress to raise a division of cavalry, that is, 
nine regiments, such as the regiment I commanded in 
Cuba," would probably have felt strangely out of date 
if he and his nine regiments had been ordered into the 
trenches, or into their automobiles, when the anticipated 
invasion began, and their horses sent to the rear for the 
transportation of supplies and artillery. 

This last duty is so onerous that the horse is still found 
to be a useful animal when engaged in it. The European 
belligerents are not only exhausting every available 
source of their own, but are making large demands upon 
American stock-yards and farms. For example, France 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 163 

has sent several orders for 41,000 horses each, to be 
filled in the United States ; the British government bought 
more than 100,000 horses and mules from a single com- 
pany in Kansas City for use in the Boer War, and has 
bought $5,000,000 worth from the same company for 
use in the first six months of the present w^ar. 

The prices here average $150, and the cost delivered 
in England is about $300. On the battle-front, the aver- 
age life of the horses is from eight to ten days. How 
many horses should we require for a good-sized war with 
a great power? And how much would they cost us, 
whether we used them here or transported them to some 
foreign shore? 

Even for use in time of peace, when the life of a horse 
is a great many times longer than in war, we have only 
one-ninth enough horses for the cavalry in the militia, 
a much smaller proportion for the field artillery, and 
none at all for the signal and sanitary troops. For 
transportation purposes, we need 5,836 more wagons, 
and draft horses to pull them. 

Evidently, it is high time that, if we are going to pre- 
pare to equip an adequate army, in the item of horses, in 
an adequate manner, our farmers had better begin at 
once to raise a greatly increased number of colts, as well 
as boys, to be soldiers; and Uncle Sam had better set 
aside a very considerable sum of money to buy, main- 
tain and replace his stock of soldier horses. 

Railways 

The Germans have led the world in the construction 
and organization of railways primarily for military pur- 
poses. Strategic routes ; bases of operation ; armored 
trains; rolling stock suitable for transporting soldiers, 
big guns and military supplies; long station platforms, 
even in small towns, suitable for the speedy embarka- 
tion of troops ; extra-long axles suitable for conveying 
German cars into Russian territory, — all these and a 



164. PREPAREDNESS 

myriad of other railway details have been worked out 
with military precision for military purposes. 

The rest of Europe has followed Germany as fast and 
as far it could along this line of preparedness. But the 
United States has built and organized its railway system 
primarily for purposes of peaceful industry and inter- 
course; and we are assured that a military emergency 
would break down that system again just at it did during 
our war with Spain in 1898. 

It is urged, accordingly, that our entire railway sys- 
tem be reorganized on a purely military basis; that the 
use of the railroads by the governments be regarded, not 
as a commercial proposition, but as a military one ; that 
certain roads be designated for the transportation of 
troops, others for the moving of military supplies, others 
for the return of empty equipment, others still for sup- 
plying the non-combatant population, etc. ; that a com- 
plete government census of all rolling stock, motive 
power and other equipment be procured ; that the million 
and a half of railway employes be enrolled and made 
ready for mobilization on the tracks or in the trenches ; 
and, in short, that everything needful be done to make 
our railway system a fit fighting force. 

It is needless to point out that the task of building 
our trans-continental and local railroad lines, which this 
country has been grappling with for three-quarters of a 
century, fades into insignificance in comparison with this 
task of military reorganization and preparedness which 
the danger lest the Germans land upon our coasts to- 
morrow imposes upon us. 

Waterways 

The enthusiastic advocates of a chain of inland water- 
ways from Maine to Florida declared, at the recent eighth 
annual convention of the Atlantic Deeper Waterways 
Association, that such a chain " would make the States 
along the Atlantic seaboard almost invulnerable to for- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 165 

eign invasion." A state senator from Rhode Island in- 
formed the convention that a system of inside water 
routes is a necessity in national preparedness and would 
be worth more than forty battleships. A congressman 
from Pennsylvania, the president of the Association, ad- 
vocated both the completion of the system of waterways 
and the building of adequate armaments for it ; and both 
he and another congressman from Pennsylvania de- 
manded federal appropriations for this feature of " river 
and harbor improvements " and denounced the tendency 
to speak of such appropriations as being in the interest 
of " the pork barrel." 

The Association set aside July 28 as the " Waterways 
National Defense Day," and arranged on that day ex- 
cursions of state and federal officials, accompanied by 
army and navy officers, for the purpose of showing the 
utterly unprepared condition of our coast defenses. It 
will inaugurate in Congress during the coming winter 
a campaign for preparedness of its very own, designed 
to secure a large number of canals like that across Cape 
Cod, through which it would be possible to send battle- 
ships from Boston to New Orleans by an inside route, 
and submarines and destroyers from New York to any 
port on the Great Lakes and thence down the Missis- 
sippi. 

This form of " pork barrel " legislation will doubtless 
be bitterly opposed by those prepareders who desire to 
see the national revenue expended on the army and navy 
rather than on inland waterways. But those prepareders 
who insist on the military value of the waterways will 
doubtless point to the fact that Germany has developed 
its waterways for military purposes and has made of the 
Rhine and other rivers as important links in its chain of 
defense as are the railways themselves. If Germany, 
why not Uncle Sam? 



166 PREPAREDNESS 

Agriculture, Mining and Natural Resources 

The American farmer has been described, with all too 
good reason, as a " miner," who merely takes from the 
soil a fertility that he never replaces. Germany has 
taught us how, by intensive and really scientific farming, 
both to increase enormously our crops and at the same 
time to retain and increase the fertility of our soil. This 
lesson, very useful in time of peace, is essential to ade- 
quate preparedness for war ; and it would be but logical 
for our government, threatened by real war with a first- 
class power, to take the farmers in hand and put them 
to school. 

Other natural resources besides the soil must be most 
carefully conserved, preeminently in the name of pre- 
paredness. Germany has long regarded its soil, mines 
and forests both as important national assets and as the 
primary source of its sinews of war. The almost un- 
limited demand made by the present war for coal, iron, 
copper, lead and oil, has so emphasized the importance 
of the conservation of natural resources that it would be 
strange indeed if our ardent prepareders do not demand 
the government ownership and control of these absolute 
essentials of adequate preparedness for and participa- 
tion in war. 

Manufactures 

Government ownership and control of manufactures 
might well seem essential, also, when one contemplates 
the necessity, as exemplified in Germany to-day, of an 
entire transformation or revolution in industry for the 
purpose of maintaining a first-class war with a first-class 
power. We have witnessed in our own neutral country 
the very extraordinary transformation of numerous lines 
of industry for supplying the demands of the belligerents 
for munitions of war. And yet we are informed that 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 167 

American manufacturers have supplied less than one per 
cent, of the muntions that have been used ! 

If our own country were engaged in a first-class war 
with a first-class power, how could we possibly maintain 
that war unless the government followed the example, not 
only of Germany, but of Great Britain and France as 
well, and took into its own control the manufactures de- 
voted to military supplies? 

We have seen how slow and difficult it has been for 
these countries to achieve this transformation after the 
war began ; why does not real preparedness demand its 
achievement in times of peace? Already, some Ameri- 
cans are demanding a government monopoly in the man- 
ufacture of munitions of war, — chiefly for the purpose of 
preventing private manufacturers from fleecing the gov- 
ernment by charging exorbitant prices for their products, 
and by artificially stimulating the government's demand 
for them. Should not adequate military preparedness be 
added as a conclusive argument for this government own- 
ership and control, — especially in view of the serious 
trouble which the British government has experienced 
from strikes on the part of employees in munitions fac- 
tories ? 

But, after all, the manufacture of military supplies is 
of minor importance, even in war-time, when compared 
with a country's entire manufacturing system ; for what 
would be the sense in fighting for land and people, if 
the people at home should be left to die from lack of ade- 
quate manufactured supplies? Old Sparta and Fred- 
erick II. of Prussia were right : Adequate preparedness 
for war demands the government ownership and con- 
trol of industry in time of peace as well as in time of war. 
The old adage, " In time of peace prepare for war," is 
peculiarly applicable to a country's industrial system, 
upon which depends the welfare, not only of the soldiers 
in the field, but of the entire population at home. 



168 PREPAREDNESS 

Finance 

Ours is the age of credit. In the old days of money 
and barter, preparedness for war might more reasonably 
have neglected its financial basis ; although history is full 
of examples of the fact that bad shillings, or paper dol- 
lars, or assignats, have caused more real injury and mis- 
ery than have the swords or bullets of the enemy. But 
for " adequate preparedness " to neglect a financial prep- 
aration for war would be fatal. 

This form of " adequate preparedness " is too large a 
subject to be discussed here ; but it may be suggested by 
one or two concrete illustrations. At the beginning of 
the present war, the German government commanded 
the banks of the Empire only to receive gold and silver, 
and not to pay it out, even to depositors. Hence, it 
would behoove private citizens to hoard up their gold 
and silver at home, in time of peace, so that they might 
have some of that useful commodity in hand when our 
great war begins. 

Our government, too, should certainly follow the ex- 
ample of Germany and store up an immense and con- 
tinually increasing supply of gold in some strong fortress. 
Germany started its present war-fund with the indemnity 
paid by France in 1871 ; the United States, thanks to the 
extraordinary balance of trade in its favor during the 
present war, has now on hand an unprecedented supply of 
gold. It should keep fast hold of this and augment it 
by every possible method. What are economic laws, 
when military preparedness is at stake ? " Money talks " ; 
and more than one war has been won by the " last gold 
sovereign " ! 

Again, this war has taught us the necessity of govern- 
ments being able to borrow enormous sums of money, — 
running far into the billions of dollars. These loans have 
been placed among their own citizens and with our 
American financiers. Now, it is evidently a very foolish 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 169 

policy for us to indulge our ambition to become a " Na- 
poleon of finance " on the money-markets of the world, 
or to emulate the " Old Lady of Thread-needle Street " 
in becoming the world's creditor. For, not only shall we 
need every dollar of our own capital to invest in our own 
industries, — transformed as they must be for real mili- 
tary preparedness, — but we must also husband all our 
resources to be loaned to our government when the great 
war bursts upon us. 

In the matter of taxation, too, we are obviously far 
from being prepared. Our chief reliance for revenue has 
been on import duties which would be very greatly re- 
duced in time of a first-class war. The income tax is, 
and has long been, the chief reliance of European nations 
for both the preparation and conduct of war; we have 
only made a beginning along this line. It is true that 
our present income tax has been necessitated by our 
enormously increased expenditures on our army and 
navy; but our military experts tell us that we are still 
" absolutely unprepared." The rate of the income tax, 
therefore, should be largely increased, it should be made 
progressive in proportion to increased incomes, and the 
exemption limit should be lowered far below the $3,000 
or $4,000 point where it is at present. Let us really pre- 
pare! 

Political Preparedness 

It is entirely obvious from the above considerations 
that our American Republic is in crying need of political 
reform, and perhaps of revolution. 

Absolutism vs. Democracy 

It has, in fact, become a grave question during the 
present war whether or not a democracy can really pre- 
pare for and conduct a great war in Twentieth Century 
style. The English, with their popular form of govern- 
ment, — fully as democratic as our own in most respects, 



170 PREPAREDNESS 

— have seemed to lose faith at times in the miUtary effi- 
ciency of any government short of despotism. Even 
Germany, on the crest of a wave of victory, has had 
trouble with a relatively innocuous Reichstag; while 
Russia has shuddered at the bare shadow of popular gov- 
ernment as represented in its Duma. What would not 
happen to the military efificiency of our president, in time 
of a great war, with " Congress on his hands " ? We 
find it a sufficiently difficult task to induce or compel 
Congress to appropriate a paltry billion in preparation 
for war. 

A Censorship of Public Opinion 

Again, what can a country hope to achieve in the way 
of conscription and a number of other military essentials, 
when freedom of speech and a free press are rampant? 
A strict censorship has been found necessary in France 
and Great Britain, but has been increasingly difficult to 
enforce. In Germany, now, they manage such things 
better ; for in time of peace they provide, — and use oc- 
casionally by way of practice and wholesome warning, — 
good, strong muzzles for the mouth-pieces of popular 
sentiment. Let us, therefore, take warning, and include 
in our adequate preparedness programme a sure means 
of preventing public opinion from interfering with mili- 
tary efficiency, by crushing that opinion at its birth or 
providing a strait-jacket for its callow youth. 

State Socialism 

From the point of view of military preparedness, — 
as well as from some other points of view, — it is a shame- 
ful waste of the human instruments of warfare to per- 
mit disease, crime, pauperism and unemployment to de- 
crease the number and undermine the efficiency of the 
population. 

The German government has dealt with these evils or 
weaknesses with the iron hand of a military paternalism 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 171 

or state socialism. It has " cleaned up " its popu- 
lation and made it truly efficient for successful war- 
fare. 

Why should not we go and do likewise? We can 
stamp out the " white plague " and the other scourges of 
the poor, and thus enable their children to grow up into 
sturdy soldiers, or the mothers of sturdy soldiers. 

We can keep our convicts busy in making munitions of 
war, or in building military roads ; we can diminish the 
commission of crime by threatening to place our crimi- 
nals in war-galleys, or coast fortifications, or on the 
front line of battle when war begins. 

We can abolish pauperism by establishing the Euro- 
pean system of insurance against illness, disability, acci- 
dent, old age. We can provide pensions for everyone in 
the public service [think of our $160,000,000 per year for 
the soldiers long since dead and gone], and for the in- 
ventor of every military device. We can give employ- 
ment and wages to the vast army of our unemployed by 
drafting them into the real army and navy to be trained 
into efficient fighters, as well as to be paid wages. 

It is high time that we were up and doing before the 
enemy is knocking at our gates. Let us get over our 
childish aversion to paternalism in government and give 
a genuine patria potestas to our too good-natured Uncle 
Sam. Let us drop our fear of the name of socialism, 
and go in for a thoroughgoing state socialism which will 
prepare us to go into a first-rate war and win. 

Down with the Hyphen 

United we stand, divided we fall, is peculiarly true in 
war and in preparation for war. What can America 
achieve in a first-rate war, or in preparing for it, if there 
are no real Americans in America, but only warring fac- 
tions of British-Americans, German-Americans, French- 
Americans, Austro-Americans, Russian-Americans, 
Turco- Americans, etc., etc.? The first step in the pre- 



172 PREPAREDNESS 

paredness programme is obviously to achieve national 
union. 

In the time of the French Revolutionary and Napo- 
leonic Wars, when our Republic was in its infancy, our 
American citizenship was rent in twain by a pro-British 
and a pro-French party. Washington and a few other 
real Americans were barely able to hold the Union to- 
gether. This Union received many a jolt in the half- 
century that followed ; but it was hoped that in the fires 
of a dread civil war it had finally been welded together 
forever and without the shadow of a fear of the old 
weakness of disunion. This hope, it now appears, was 
too optimistic. The President in his last message to 
Congress, after urging a complicated plan of prepared- 
ness, declares that we should prepare, not so much 
against foreign foes, as against the foes within our own 
household. His words are as follows : 

" I have spoken to you today, gentlemen, upon a sin- 
gle theme, the thorough preparation of the nation to care 
for its own security and to make sure of entire freedom 
to play the impartial role in this hemisphere and in the 
world which all believe to have been providentially as- 
signed to it. / have had in my mind no thought of any 
immediate or particular danger arising out of our rela- 
tions with other nations. We are at peace with all the 
nations of the world, and there is reason to hope that no 
question in controversy between this and other govern- 
ments will lead to any serious breach of amicable rela- 
tions, grave as some differences of attitude and policy 
have been and may yet turn out to be. 

"I am sorry to say that the gravest threats against 
our national peace and safety have been uttered ivithin 
our own borders. There are citizens of the United 
States, I blush to admit, born under other flags, but wel- 
comed under our generous naturalization laws to the 
full freedom and opportunity of America, who have 
poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 173 

our national life ; who have sought to bring the authority 
and good name of our Government into contempt, to de- 
stroy our industries wherever they thought it effective 
for their vindictive purposes to strike at them and to 
debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue. Their 
number is not great as compared with the whole number 
of those sturdy hosts by which our nation has been en- 
riched in recent generations out of virile foreign stocks ; 
but it is great enough to have brought deep disgrace 
upon us and to have made it necessary that we should 
promptly make use of processes of law by which we may 
be purged of their corrupt distempers. 

" America never witnessed anything like this before. 
It never dreamed it possible that men sworn into its own 
citizenship, men drawn out of great free stocks such as 
supplied some of the best and strongest elements of that 
little, but how heroic nation that in a high day of old 
staked its very life to free itself from every entangle- 
ment that had darkened the fortunes of the older na- 
tions and set up a new standard here, — that men of such 
origins and such free choice of allegiance would ever 
turn in malign reaction against the Government and peo- 
ple who had welcomed and nurtured them and seek to 
make this proud country once more a hotbed of Euro- 
pean passion. 

" A little while ago such a thing would have seemed 
incredible. Because it was incredible we made no prepa- 
ration for it. We would have been almost ashamed to 
prepare for it, as if we were suspicious of ourselves, our 
own comrades and neighbors ! But the ugly and incredi- 
ble thing has actually come about and we are without 
adequate Federal laws to deal with it. 

" I urge you to enact such laws at the earliest possible 
moment and feel that in doing so I am urging you to do 
nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the 
nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and an- 
archy must be crushed out. They are not many, but 



174* PREPAREDNESS 

they are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power 
should close over them at once. They have formed plots 
to destroy property; they have entered into conspiracies 
against the neutrality of the Government; they have 
sought to pry into every confidential transaction of the 
Government in order to serve interests alien to our ov^n. 
It is possible to deal w^ith these things very effectually. 
I need not suggest the terms in which they may be dealt 
with. 

" I wish that it could be said that only a few men, 
misled by mistaken sentiments of allegiance to the gov- 
ernments under which they were born, had been guilty 
of disturbing the self-possession and misrepresenting the 
temper and principles of the country during these days 
of terrible war, when it would seem that every man who 
was truly an American would instinctively make it his 
duty and his pride to keep the scales of judgment even 
and prove himself a partisan of no nation but his own. 
But it cannot. There are some men among us, and many 
resident abroad who, though born and bred in the United 
States and calling themselves Americans, have so forgot- 
ten themselves and their honor as citizens as to put their 
passionate sympathy with one or the other side in the 
great European conflict above their regard for the peace 
and dignity of the United States. They also preach and 
practice disloyalty. No laws, I suppose, can reach cor- 
ruptions of the mind and heart; but I should not speak 
of others without also speaking of these and expressing 
the even deeper humiliation and scorn which every self- 
possessed and thoughtfully patriotic American must feel 
when he thinks of them and of the discredit they are 
daily bringing upon us." 

It is possible, then, that we have come to this ; that, a 
century and a quarter after our political union began, and 
a half-century after one great civil war was supposed to 
have cemented it forever, we shall be called upon to fight 
another still more awful civil war? And that our pre- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 175 

paredness must be directed against this danger which 
is nearer and greater than is the danger of attack by for- 
eign foe? What would be the scope and meaning of 
" adequate " military preparedness for such an emer- 
gency as this? 

International Preparedness 

If we are to prepare " adequately " against naturalized 
or alien foes within our own borders, as well as against 
the foreign foe from whose loins they sprang, it would 
appear to be but ordinary prudence to carry our pre- 
paredness programme into other lands beyond the seas. 

A Foreign Press Campaign 

We have witnessed during the present war an extraor- 
dinary appeal through the manifold products of the press 
to the public opinion of neutral nations, especially of our 
own. Both camps of combatants in the war have de- 
fended continually and vehemently their own motives 
and conduct, and blackened those of their opponents. 
We know, it is declared, who our future enemies are to 
be. Then why not now, in time of peace, create public 
opinion in our favor throughout the world and against 
the enemy, in wise preparation for the war? 

At the same time, a campaign in newspaper, magazine 
and the " best sellers," should be carried on at home for 
the purpose of sowing in the hearts of our own people 
seeds of suspicion, envy, hatred, which may spring up 
into a harvest of embittered eMcient soldiers when " The 
Day " of reckoning with our enemy arrives. 

Foreign Bases of Supply and Operation 

If we are to act upon the wise old militarj^ maxim of 
carrying our war of defense into the enemy's territory, 
we should include in our preparedness programme the 
organization, within that territory or close upon its bor- 
ders, of adequate bases of supply and operation. These 



176 PREPAREDNESS 

will be all the more necessary for us because of the long 
distances across the oceans to our central base at home. 

We know how important to Germany have been the 
Belgian railways and the French coal and iron mines. 
Surely there must be some way in which we can, by 
hook or by crook, establish in time of peace an invisible 
control over such resources on the boundaries of the 
enemy's country which would stand us in good stead in 
time of war. 

We have heard stories of massive concrete piers for 
ocean steamers, or for factories and warehouses, built 
by Germans in London, Paris and other advantageous 
places [even in Hoboken!], and all ready for use as 
mountings for big guns when the German troops ar- 
rived. Surely there are enough iron, cement and pa- 
triotic Americans living abroad, to accomplish these and 
other forms of preparedness in the territory of our pro- 
spective foe ! 

Espionage and Incendiarism 

To spy out the best places for these bases of opera- 
tion, and to enable them to be built with the requisite 
degree of secrecy, a far-reaching system of secret service 
for work in foreign lands must be organized. Merely to 
arrest in America, now and then, a spy or two of Ger- 
man, British or Japanese origin, is far from adequate 
preparedness. 

We know something of the wide-spread system of 
espionage, which existed before the war among the 
" possible enemies " of Europe, by reading of the many 
trials and convictions of foreign spies, in the various 
lands which are now at war with each other. Doubt- 
less, they all learned much that is of much service now 
that war has come. Here is one fertile field in which 
Yankee ingenuity and cleverness can expand itself in 
patriotic and adequate preparedness. 

But even it is far from sufficient. We have had 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 177 

brought home to us the miUtary importance of dynamit- 
ing munition plants and paralyzing industry by causing 
strikes and boycotts. Here is another fair field for the 
cultivation of our adequate prepareders ; and it lies not 
only within the territory of our possible enemy, but 
within that also, — as we Americans have learned full 
well, — of those neutral lands from which our enemy may 
hope to gain his military supplies, the raw materials of 
his industry, and his food supply as well. In the bar- 
barous days of old, ambassadors were those who were 
sent to lie abroad for the good of their country. In our 
more civilized and efficient days, we might send forth a 
cloud of spies, incendiaries and the like, who would put 
the I.W.W. and nihilists to shame by their far-reaching 
preparedness in foreign lands for our victory in time of 
war. 

Offensive and Defensive Alliances 

Above all, in these days when war itself is inter- 
nationalized and a half-dozen nations or more fight on 
either side, it behooves us to instruct our ambassadors 
to secure understandings, ententes and iron-clad alli- 
ances with the powers of this earth, both great and small. 
Even the little fellows in the Balkans may come in 
handy, as we have seen. 

Washington's warning against entangling alliances is 
entirely out of date, and if adhered to might well cause our 
country itself to be eclipsed. If a victorious Germany and 
her allies are to attack us, we should prepare for such 
an emergency by making an ofifensive and defensive alli- 
ance with all that is left of Germany's opponents and 
with all that are left of the neutral states. If a victori- 
ous Great Britain, Japan and their allies are to attack 
us, it is none too early, — perhaps, in view of our last 
year's experiences, it is even now too late, — for us to 
bind the Teuton and the Turk to our sides as shield and 
buckler. 



178 PREPAREDNESS 

J. A SUMMARY OF PREPAREDNESS ON LAND 

Looking back over the many and vitally important 
items in this programme of " fundamental preparedness," 
it seems almost like a descent from the sublime to the 
ridiculous, from the text to the foot-note, to become ab- 
sorbed again in the programme for mere military pre- 
paredness on the land and under it. But since this is 
what the prepareders of to-day have fixed their hearts 
upon, and are urging upon the attention of our citizens, 
the plunge must be taken, and a summary of land pre- 
paredness be presented before v^e proceed to the pre- 
paredness programmes for the seas and air. 

A standing army of regular or professional soldiers is 
alone adequate, one school of experts, — the most expert 
of all, — declares ; not tens or even hundreds of thousands 
of these, but millions of them are needed for adequate 
defense. In a first-class war between first-class powers, 
capture or sickness, death or permanent disability, or 
even " missing," accounts for hundreds of thousands and 
millions. Two millions " missing," five millions captive, 
eleven millions dead or permanently disabled ; such is 
the record of the European War to date. 

The cost of an " adequate " standing army of from 
250,000 to 5,000,000 men would be from $250,000,000 to 
$5,000,000,000 per annum! 

If we depend upon Reserves, we find that we have 16 
as against Germany's 4,430,000 reserves. The new plan 
would give us 400,000 reserves at the end of seven 
years, and at the cost of some $200,000,000. 

The State Militia, or National Guard, has so many 
and such grave defects that it is seriously proposed to 
abolish it. If it has too strong a political hold on life 
for this, then bolster it up by pay, — a minimum annual 
pay of from $60,000,000 to $80,000,000 ; but whatever is 
done to it to strengthen it as a makeshift, we are as- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 179 

sured that it will never be numerous enough or truly 
adequate. 

Volunteers, in the shape of a " Federal Citizen Army 
of Continentals " and to the number of 400,000 within 
the next three years, are proposed to help eke out the 
strength of our regulars, reserves and militiamen. But 
these newcomers are resented alike by the regulars and 
the militiamen ; neither their number nor training is re- 
garded as adequate ; and their cost is prodigious. 

To enlist 150,000 regulars, 400,000 reserves, 2,000,- 
000 militiamen, and 400,000 Continentals, would be very 
difficult, perhaps impossible, in a land whose people are 
absorbed in the world's real work. Without conscrip- 
tion, which democracy, — even in Great Britain in the 
midst of the greatest of wars, — rejects as suicidal, many 
novel incentives would have to be resorted to, and many 
novel sources of supply would be needed to be tapped. 

To give an " adequate " training to such a large num- 
ber of men and officers, outside of the regular army, 
would require a number and variety of experiments in 
the field of education, which would prove extremely ex- 
pensive and utterly inadequate, and would militarize the 
American republic into the despotism of a Prussia or a 
Sparta. 

Turning to the material of warfare, we find that mod- 
ern war requires thousands of big guns, of from 12-inch 
to 17-inch calibre, with a range of from ten to twenty 
miles, costing about $100,000 each, and lasting for about 
150 shots. 

Rifles having been temporarily eclipsed, — perhaps an- 
tiquated, — by machine-guns, we find that we need twelve 
of these for every 1,000 troops; or, if we adopt the Ger- 
man one-man machine-gun, 100 for every 1,000 troops. 
Our facilities for making them can turn out 5,000 in 
three months ; to equip a small army of 800,000 men 
with them would require about four years. 

We think that we have revolutionized our munitions 



180 PREPAREDNESS 

industry during the present war, and we have; but that 
revolution, compared with what would really be needed 
to equip us " adequately " for a great war, is like Shay's 
Rebellion as compared with the French Revolution. If 
we supply Europe with i per cent, of the ammunition 
required in the present war, what does preparedness 
along this line mean in supplying ourselves " adequately " 
for a great war of our own ? 

What kinds of ammunition shall we prepare ? Smoke- 
less powder, or high explosives, or poisonous gases, or 
burning liquids? How many and what kinds of bombs 
and shells? Shall we go in for them all, and make as 
many as possible of every kind? If so, can our industrial 
system, our national pocket-book, and our moral stand- 
ards endure the strain? And what assurance have we 
that the year of grace, — and science, — 191 6, will not 
make the whole lot of them as antiquated and inade- 
quate as a last year's bird's-nest ? 

As for fortifications, — thus far we have merely 
" played politics " with our inland forts, which would be 
of as much service in a real war of *' Chubby Berthas " 
as an Indian tomahawk or a tree-trunk. For these, as 
for moving forts in the shape of armored trains, trolleys 
and automobiles, we have illimitable opportunity, — as il- 
limitable as our valleys and rivers and mountains, our 
railway, trolley and high-road systems. Along our 
coasts, we have some 200 miles partially protected ; and 
about 14,000 miles adequately to protect. 

Even such amazing and un-American fortresses as 
Liege, Antwerp and Warsaw are inadequate before the 
onslaught of 16 and 17-inch guns. Fortress guns, such 
as our 12-inch ones, with an effective range of 13.000 
yards, are not adequate against such guns as the 15-inch 
guns of the Queen Elizabeth, with an effective range of 
21,000 yards. 

Yes, we could get them, too, if we got down to busi- 
ness on the military programme. But we should at least 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER LAND 181 

know what this business means, from every point of 
view; and of this we should be informed also, that the 
eternal rivalry between the means of offense and the 
means of defense is no nearer an end and an "adequate " 
decision than it was in the days of the sling-shot and the 
tree-trunk. Indeed, the advent of the aeroplane makes 
" preparedness " of every kind on land as uncertain 
and inadequate as a mercury or quicksand foundation for 
a temple. 

Dig, hide, burrow, — such are the watch-words in this 
war of aeroplanes, bombs and shrapnel. Intrenchments 
stretching 8,800 miles is the proud record of this pres- 
ent war. We are said to have men and facilities at pres- 
ent for intrenching for about 65 miles. When we con- 
template the men, tools and materials needed for " ade- 
quate " digging-in, living-under and fighting-from, our 
broad and generous piece of Mother Earth, we realize 
something of the endless vista of preparedness that opens 
up before us along this line. 

It is needless to recount again the " fundamental pre- 
paredness " of the individual and society, by the count- 
less physical, mental, moral, industrial, commercial, finan- 
cial, political and international means available in this 
Twentieth Century. But it may again be stated that 
these means are absolutely essential to " adequate " pre- 
paredness ; that to neglect them, or to use them half- 
heartedly, is to invite disaster; and that to develop them 
to the limit is not only an endless task, but one that is 
fraught with the deadliest menace to the prosperity, in- 
tegrity and liberty of our American Republic. 



VII 

PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER THE SEA 

BUT, the naval experts assure us, all this endless 
preparedness on the land and under it is wholly 
unnecessary ; the navy is the best and only really 
possible defense for the United States. With only Can- 
ada to the north of us, and only Mexico to the south, 
and with the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans on either front, 
we can and should depend upon naval preparedness to 
defy a hostile world. 

But, some enthusiasts declare, give us adequate pre- 
paredness on the sea, and we will not be obliged to face 
a hostile world ; a good navy is the best preservative of 
peace. The field secretaries of the Navy League have 
been preaching this philosophy of peace for years, and 
they are still preaching it in spite of the present worst 
war in history between Great Britain and Germany, both 
of which countries, all the experts are agreed, have far 
better navies than our own. Surely, if any navy can 
preserve peace. Great Britain's might have been ex- 
pected to do so. 

No, other naval enthusiasts admit, we can never hope 
to build a navy that can insure peace ; but we can build 
a navy for defense when the " inevitable " future war 
bursts upon us. At a recent meeting of the Navy League 
in Philadelphia, for example, a doctor of divinity de- 
clared : " Christianity and war are incompatible ; you 
can't link an army and navy to Christianity. They don't 
jibe. It is true that I preach that war is wrong. But 
in the face of a world-war, and the danger to this coun- 
try of a possible war, Christianity is helpless. There- 
fore," he continued, " I hung up my Christianity on Au- 

182 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 183 

gust 4, 1914, and will not take it down until the end of 
the war. And a navy at least double the size of our pres- 
ent one is a sheer necessity. It is too bad that it is not 
lawful to murder the man who does not understand the 
need of a greater navy." 

The frank speaking of this representative of the Prince 
of Peace is not emulated, at least in public, by many other 
clerical, civil or military critics ; but his sentiments are 
evidently shared by a goodly number, and it is obviously 
desirable that all should at least " understand the need 
of a greater navy." Let us, then, analyse the naval pro- 
gramme, taking into consideration our present prepared- 
ness on and under the seas, the preparedness of other 
nations, and what we should be called upon to do, so as 
to be adequately prepared to meet a first-class naval 
power in Twentieth Century naval warfare. 

A. PREPAREDNESS ON THE SEA 

Dreadnoughts and Siiperdreadnoughis 

We naturally turn first to the warship, — the dread- 
nought, or .yi(/>^rdreadnought, as it has so recently and 
so rapidly become. 

Their Increased Size and Cost 

Men still in early middle life have watched these war- 
ships grow. Twenty-five years ago the United States 
built its first real modern battleships ; these were the 
Massachusetts, the Indiana and the Oregon, of 11,000 
tons' displacement. Ten years ago, the first " dread- 
nought " was launched, with a displacement of 18,000 
tons. This year, the Pennsylvania was launched with 
31,400 tons ; and the superdreadnoughts planned for 1916 
and 191 7 will have 32,000 tons or more. Within the 
same quarter-century, the cost of our warships has in- 
creased from $6,000,000 for the Massachusetts to $14,- 
000,000 for the Pennsylvania, and for the superdread- 
noughts planned for 1916 and 1917, $i5,ooO;00o and $18,- 



184. PREPAREDNESS 

800,000, respectively. Thus within twenty-five years, 
our warships have increased nearly three-fold in size 
and more than three-fold in initial cost. 

So huge are these naval monsters that there are very 
few harbors in the world that can accommodate them, 
and but very few dry docks that can build or repair them. 
So expensive are they that there are very few universi- 
ties or colleges that possess an endowment equal to the 
cost of a single one of them, or have an annual expendi- 
ture equal to its maintenance. 

How Many Do We Need? 

How many of these superdreadnoughts do we need, 
to be " adequately prepared " ? The General Board of 
the Navy, which is the official adviser of the Navy De- 
partment, has advocated for a number of years a navy 
comprising forty-eight battleships, less than twenty years 
old, and 192 destroyers. This the Board has considered 
a suitable " foundation of fighting ships for purposes of 
defense against the strongest nation, except Great Brit- 
ain." 

Just why the number of battleships was placed at forty- 
eight, no man can tell. There happen to be forty-eight 
States in the Union, and it may be considered a delicate 
compliment to continue the plan of giving each of them 
a dreadnought as a namesake. Or it may be that, since 
the Board advocated the building of four battleships 
each year, it calculates that at that rate we should main- 
tain our navy at forty-eight ships less than twenty 
years old. But what relation either the namesake 
scheme, or the four-each-year plan, has to " adequate 
preparedness," the Board has never deigned to 
explain. 

At the beginning of the present war, we had 12 bat- 
tleships of the dreadnought type, either built or building ; 
Great Britain had 36; Germany had 20; France had 12, 
and Japan had 6. Of the pre-dreadnonght type, we had 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 185 

22; Great Britain 40; Germany 20; France 18, and 
Japan 13. If we had been called upon to fight Germany, 
our battleships would have been to hers as 17 to 20; or 
Germany and its present allies, as 2 to 3. If Great 
Britain is our foe, then our battleships would have been 
to hers as i to 2 ; or Great Britain and her present allies, 
as I to 5. And let us not lay flattering unction to our 
souls, our naval experts warn us, by fancying that the 
sea-power of the present belligerents is being mutually 
destroyed. We are assured that even during this year 
of stupendous warfare, Great Britain has laid down the 
keels of eleven dreadnoughts and Germany nine ! We 
are warned, also, to contemplate the navy of a victorious 
Great Britain, or a victorious Germany, when the fleets 
of its defeated rival have been added to it. 

To keep pace with the battleships of our " possible 
enemies," then, how many shall we build each year? If 
we are to fight Japan, one a year is not enough; if we 
are to fight a normal Germany, two a year are not 
enough ; if we are to fight a victorious Germany, four 
a year are not enough ; if we are to fight a normal Great 
Britain, six a year are not enough; if we are to fight a 
victorious Great Britain, no man can say how many are 
enough ! 

Under the spur of the preparedness campaign, our 
present administration is proposing the expenditure upon 
our navy during the next five years of one billion dollars. 
Of this sum, more than one-half is to be expended on 
the construction of new ships. Sixteen of these, costing 
about $300,000,000, are to be battleships and battle cruis- 
ers. That is to say, if this programme is adopted, we 
shall have at the end of five or six years, 28 dreadnoughts 
and battle cruisers, while Germany had 28 a year ago, 
and Great Britain had 46. 

It may be salutary for us to remember, also, the state- 
ment of a former Secretary of the Navy that we have 
already spent a half-billion dollars more upon our na\-y 



186 PREPAREDNESS 

than Germany spent upon hers, but that ours is a bad 
second to it ! 

Armored Cruisers 

Next, consider the item of armored cruisers. The first 
of these, the New York and the Brooklyn, were built 
twenty-five years ago ; they had 8,000 and 9,000 tons' dis- 
placement; and a speed of 21 knots. Since then, armored 
cruisers have grown in size to 14,500 tons' displacement, 
and in speed to 22 knots. At the beginning of the war, 
we had 11 of these, as against 34 for Great Britain, 9 for 
Germany, 20 for France, and 13 for Japan. 

The new preparedness programme provides for no 
more of these cruisers, for the reason that they have been 
made obsolete by the submarine and the battle cruiser. 

Battle Cruisers 

But let us not flatter ourselves on being ahead of Ger- 
many in the item of armored cruisers, even though we 
are behind Japan and have only one-third as many as 
Great Britain. For Germany, Great Britain and Japan 
have been building battle cruisers, which are a type far 
superior to the armored cruiser, having a displacement 
of from 20,000 to 30,000 tons, and a speed of from 27 
to 31.75 knots. Of these formidable warships. Great 
Britain had built or building at the beginning of the war 
10, Germany 8, Japan 4, and the United States none 
at all ! 

The effectiveness of the battle cruisers as against even 
the heavily armored cruisers, was shown in the Battle of 
the Falkland Islands, last December, when the British 
Invincible and Inflexible so readily destroyed the Ger- 
man Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. 

The " war games " of our navy during the past sum- 
mer have also revealed, to the navy men, the ease with 
which an invading expedition equipped with battle cruis- 
ers, could evade or destroy our existing navy and land 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 187 

troops on the Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware River, and 
Long Island, thus menacing Washington and Baltimore, 
Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The " theoreti- 
cal " battle cruisers in these war games, by reason of their 
long range and high speed, enabled them, according to 
the umpires, " to pick off the slower and weaker cruisers 
almost at will, at the same time eluding the supporting 
dreadnoughts." One of our naval experts, to whom 
Japan looms large on the western horizon, declares : 
" One of these powerful ships [that is, Japan's four bat- 
tle cruisers] could in one swoop crush our entire Pacific 
fleet; destroy our solitary dry-dock at Olongapo in the 
Philippines, cross the sea, and raid every unfortified city 
on the Pacific Coast from Sitka to San Diego, meanwhile 
coaling in our ports, and on the way home capture Guam. 
Nothing of ours could overtake and destroy it." 

Under the spur of such expert terrorizing as this, the 
new preparedness programme proposes to remedy this 
apparently fatal defect in our navy by giving us, by the 
end of 1 92 1, six battle cruisers at a cost of $105,000,000. 
This would place us ahead of Japan, — provided that 
Japan builds no more in the meantime ; but even then we 
should lag behind the number that both Great Britain 
and Germany had a year ago. 

Other experts declare that it is foolish for us to enter 
into the competition of building battle cruisers, for they 
seriously question the genuine efficiency of this kind of 
battleships. It is argued, for example, that they are a 
hybrid, and possess neither the speed of the light cruiser 
with equal engine power, nor the heavy armor and ar- 
ray of guns of the dreadnought ; that, consequently, they 
will prove a failure, as all other hybrids have done, — 
notably the old Texas of 1889, which was a cross be- 
tween a battleship and a cruiser, and because of " ineffi- 
ciency " was finally used as a target in Chesapeake Bay. 
Again, the halting of four British battle cruisers after 
they had sunk the German battle cruiser, Bliicher, in the 



188 PREPAREDNESS 

Battle of Heligoland Bight, last January, is pointed to 
as evidence of the battle cruiser's helplessness in the face 
of the submarine. 

At the very least, these critics urge, the European bat- 
tle cruisers should be given a fair trial in the present war 
and proven a real success, before the United States in- 
vests a hundred millions in them. 

Scout Cruisers 

Again, consider the item of "light armored cruisers" 
or "scouts," w^hich are used for the protection or de- 
struction of commerce ; for scouting service and the de- 
struction of torpedo craft, when with the battle fleet; or 
for the same service when with the torpedo flotilla. Of 
these, the United States had built or building at the be- 
ginning of the war, 14; Germany, 46; Great Britain, 91 ; 
and Japan, 13. Our new programme proposes 10 more 
of these before 1921 at a cost of $50,000,000; but even 
then we shall be a long way behind the point reached by 
two of our " possible enemies " at the beginning of the 
war! 

Torpedo Boats and Destroyers 

Torpedo boats, as launchers of torpedoes, have been 
antiquated by the advent of submarines ; but torpedo boat 
destroyers are still demanded as the protectors or senti- 
nels of dreadnoughts against submarines. Some critics 
of our navy consider them " the most war-ready units of 
the navy " ; but declare that we have not nearly enough. 
The General Board of our Navy demands four of them 
for each dreadnought, or 192 in all. Counting in the 
torpedo-boats of earlier type, we have 75 ; Germany, 154; 
Great Britain, 237 (besides hundreds of armed fishing- 
boats) ; and Japan, 79. The new programme proposes to 
give us within five years, 50 more destroyers at a cost 
of $68,000,000, or 125 in all; again, a long way behind 
the Great Britain and Germany of 1914. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 189 



B. WHAT SHALL OUR PROGRAMME BE? 

Taking note of the five classes of above-water fight- 
ing-craft, we find ourselves outclassed, at the beginning 
of the present war, in all of these by Great Britain; in 
four of them by Germany ; and in three of them by Japan. 

Great Germany Japan United 
Britain States 

Battleships 

Dreadnoughts 36 20 6 12 

Pre-dreadnoughts ... 40 20 13 22 

Battle Cruisers 10 8 4 o 

Armored Cruisers 34 9 13 1 1 

Scout Cruisers 91 46 13 14 

Torpedo Boats 237 154 79 75 

The new preparedness programme proposes to spend 
$411,000,000 within the next five years upon 76 more 
ships of the five types, and thereby increase our number 
to 210. - 

Taking them all together, and adding coast defense ves- 
sels (of which Great Britain has none), for Germany 2, 
Japan 2 and the United States 4, we find the totals to 
be: Great Britain, 448; Germany, 259; United States, 
214; and Japan, 130. 

On the showing of these official figures, we might over- 
take a normal Great Britain, in the next twenty years, by 
trebling our yearly outfit of war-craft ; and a normal Ger- 
many, by doubling it. As to a victorious Great Britain, or 
a victorious Germany : who shall say what our programme 
should be? As to the expense of such a programme, 
we may get some idea from the statement of a former 
Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Meyer, that we have already 
spent $500,000,000 more upon our navy than Germany 
has spent on hers ! And from the further fact that the 
new preparedness programme, with an expenditure of 
nearly $500,000,000 more, would not bring us, by the 
end of 1921, within 40 ships of what Germany had In 



190 PREPAREDNESS 

ipi4, or within one-half of Great Britain's number a year 
ago ! 

Such facts as these, however, are of small significance 
to our prepareders. They reply, as Congressman Gard- 
ner does : " I believe that we ought not to acquiesce in 
the John Bull theory that they be allowed to have twice 
as many ships as the United States [he should have said 
thrice] or anybody else on earth." ^ And in regard to 
the expense, they say, also with Mr. Gardner: "The 
armament of Germany and Great Britain has been 
made almost entirely without regard to cost; — when it 
is a question of national safety and the safety of democ- 
racy, as in our case, I think they should be made without 
regard to cost." ^ 

The prepareders, when they argued that peace could 
be maintained only by " adequate armaments," were 
thoroughgoing peace-at-any-price men; now that they 
believe in " adequate armaments " for purposes of de- 
fense, they are still any-price men. But, instead of being 
willing to pay as they go, and bearing the burden of ex- 
pense themselves, they propose to shift the burden to the 
shoulders of future generations by issuing bonds to se- 
cure the funds for their " preparedness " programme. 
Iron-clad as is their determination to prepare, they are 
equally determined not to prepay. 

Great Britain's Tzvo-Power Policy 

The British Government has long advocated a " two- 
power " policy, or a policy of " two keels to one " ; that 
is, the policy of maintaining England's navy as equal to 
the navies of any other two powers. At the height of 
the popularity of this policy, England held a review of 
its navy, which was participated in by twenty-eight miles 
of warships, steaming one behind the other as close as 
safety would permit. That same summer, England 

' Before the Committee on Naval Afifairs, December i8, 1914- 
= Ibid. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 191 

passed through an acute panic of fear lest she was liable 
to an invasion from Germany. It was the summer when 
the play, " An Englishman's Home," set England wild ; 
and the answer of England's big navy men was, of course, 
build twenty-eight more miles of warships. The oppo- 
nents of " preparedness " endeavored to point out the 
need of ascertaining and removing Germany's hatred or 
fear of England, and emphasized the fact that Germany 
was building and launching dreadnoughts only in imita- 
tion of England, and because of Germany's fear of Eng- 
land's navy. This efifort was in vain ; the mad competi- 
tion continued at an accelerated rate, until — the greatest 
war in history, and the determination on each side to de- 
stroy the other's menacing navy. 

Our Two-Ocean Policy 

England's policy of " two keels to one " and Ger- 
many's policy of " a navy for defense," was brought 
across the Atlantic during a recent presidential adminis- 
tration and translated into a " two ocean policy," or the 
policy, in the words of President Roosevelt, of having a 
navy so large that one fleet could be maintained on the 
Atlantic and one on the Pacific, each of them able to 
cope with any fleet that could be sent against it. This 
policy at that time was evidently aimed at Germany and 
Japan. But during the present war, it has been defined 
by a United States Senator as follows : " Our national 
defense requires a fleet at least as powerful as those of 
Great Britain and France on the Atlantic, and of Japan 
and Russia on the Pacific " ! 

When asked as to " adequate " defense against Great 
Britain's navy, the presidential reply was that, when the 
Panama Canal is opened, the two fleets can readily cooper- 
ate with each other against even the mistress of the seas. 
President Roosevelt's successor argued that, with the 
opening of the Canal, we should be able to keep station- 
ary, and even to diminish, the two-ocean fleets. Now, 



192 PREPAREDNESS 

however, that the Culebra Cut continues to slide, and 
reduces for weeks at a time the level of the water in the 
Canal to thirty feet, whereas at least thirty-five feet are 
necessary for the passage of a dreadnought, our naval 
experts have returned to the full two-ocean policy. 

It has been found in fact that the Panama Canal has 
become a great military and naval liability, and not an 
enormously valuable asset. As a part of the coast-line 
of the United States, and as one of the supposedly great- 
est prizes of modern warfare, not only has it been forti- 
fied at enormous expense, but its defense is put forward 
as one of the prime reasons for greatly increasing our 
navy. Taken in connection with our naval base at Guan- 
tanamo, 700 miles distant, it is regarded as " the Gibraltar 
of the American Mediterranean," and has become 
the object of utmost solicitude on the part of those who 
demand for this " Caribbean Gibraltar and Mediter- 
ranean " as much or more naval and military protection 
than Great Britain accords to their European counter- 
parts. The present war has shown also the ease with 
which a dirigible could drop explosives on the Canal, so 
as to block it up for an indefinite time ; and a new alarm 
has arisen lest, when the United States goes to war with 
Japan and sends its navy into the Pacific, Germany will 
send a bomb into the Panama Canal and then seize the 
opportunity, in our fleet's absence from the Atlantic, to 
invade Long Island and New York or Boston ! 

Hence the two-ocean policy is regarded as indispensa- 
ble, as far as Germany and Japan are concerned ; while as 
for Great Britain, — well, why should John Bull be per- 
mitted, as Mr. Gardner pointedly inquired, to have twice 
or thrice as many warships as Uncle Sam? War is hell, 
Mr. Gardner admits; but, he continues, " the most pitia- 
ble animal known to natural history is a cat in hell with- 
out claws. I want more dogs of war," he shouts, " and 
I want those dogs to have teeth." Well, if we are really 
going to permit our country to go to hell, in the role of a 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 193 

black cat or a yellow dog, we had better get down to 
business on the feline chiropodist's and canine dentist's 
tasks that lie before us. But let us go into the business, 
at least, with our eyes wide open and realize entirely the 
kind and number of claws and teeth we should require, 
as cat or dog, to whip the British lion or the German 
double-eagle. 

A Navy's Cost and Obsolescence 

It is not merely the greatly increased number of bat- 
tleships demanded by the preparedness programme that 
we should bear in mind, but also their greatly increased 
cost. Fifteen millions of dollars seemed to be and was a 
stupendous price to pay last year for a single dread- 
nought ; but next year, it will cost nineteen millions. Tor- 
pedo boat destroyers, too, have increased in price from 
$925,000, for the last one authorized by Congress, to $1,- 
360,000 apiece for those now demanded. These, of 
course, are merely the prices of the ships when launched, 
— their initial cost ; and to this must be added the cost of 
their maintenance and up-keep, ranging as high as $1,- 
000,000 per annum for a dreadnought. 

But still the whole story of cost is not told. For no 
sooner is a battleship launched, — in fact, no sooner is its 
keel laid down, — than it begins immediately to deterio- 
rate ; not so much because it is a machine and deteriorates 
as all machines must do, but especially because bigger 
and better fighting machines are immediately planned and 
constructed. 

As an American newspaper humorist puts it : " Straw 
hats in December are not as out of date as a battleship 
by the time it has become launched. It costs $15,000,000, 
and is the most powerful thing on earth, except, perhaps, 
a United States district judge. But the nation which has 
just dug down for it can't take any pleasure in it, because 
the country next door has just completed plans for a ship 
which will make this one look as foolish as a rowboat 



194. PREPAREDNESS 

with a hoop-skirt for a turret." Or as a First Lord of 
the British Admiralty puts it : " It is wrong and waste- 
ful to build a single ship for the navy which is not wanted. 
Nearly three years of her brief life have been lived before 
she is born. Before she is even launched, the vessels 
which are capable of destroying her have been projected. 
It is an ill service to the Navy to build a single ship before 
its time." The " life " of a battleship, after it has been 
launched, — that is, in time of peace, — is placed by the ex- 
perts at about fifteen years. During that short period 
only, can it be placed in the " first fighting line " ; and 
during even that period it continues day by day to lose 
in absolute and relative efficiency. Hence, each genera- 
tion must not only build, but rebuild, its fleet of dread- 
noughts. 

The proud " sovereigns of the seas " of a dozen or 
fifteen years ago are as useless to-day for winning a 
victory in a first-class naval battle as is a last year's bird's 
nest for hatching next spring's chickens. Again, com- 
pare the six battleships of the Connecticut class, which 
were built or building in 1905-6, with the three super- 
dreadnoughts of the California class, which are now be- 
ing built. Their lengths are 450 feet, as against 624 feet ; 
their displacement, 16,000 tons, as against 32,000 tons; 
their speed, 18 knots, as against 21 knots; their arma- 
ment 4 12-inch, 8 8-inch and 12 7-inch guns, as against 
12 14-inch and 22 5-inch guns ; their cost less than $8,- 
000,000, as against more than $15,000,000. 

The Constant Revolution in Naval Warfare 

But even yet the whole story is not told. For, not only 
are bigger and better ships of the same type built from 
year to year and month to month, but entirely new types, 
or fundamental modifications in the old types, are in- 
vented, and the whole science of ship-building is revolu- 
tionized. For example, although the price of torpedo- 
boat destroyers has increased during the war by 50 per 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 195 

cent., their usefulness as scouts has been practically nulli- 
fied by the development of aeroplanes. 

One of the most striking illustrations of the revolution- 
ary results of introducing new types, or fundamental 
modifications of the old, is that of the launching of the 
first " dreadnought." Great Britain launched this mon- 
ster of the deep with unrestrained rejoicings; for it 
seemed to make assurance doubly sure that with such 
a warship British preparedness was complete. It was 
soon realized in England, however, that the advent of the 
monster had dwarfed into relative insignificance between 
700 and 800 of Great Britain's sea-dogs of war. In Ger- 
many, too, the naval experts recognized a great oppor- 
tunity, and at once followed the example of building 
dreadnoughts. So well did Germany succeed in this that 
the superiority of Britain's navy was endangered; 
and, to maintain its two-power policy, it was neces- 
sary to build superdreadnoughts. Along this line, also, 
Germany began to compete, and the contest waxed hot- 
ter and hotter until this war was precipitated to 
solve by tour de force the insoluble problem. Mean- 
while, the superdreadnoughts eclipsed not only all the 
pre-dreadnought ships, but even the dreadnoughts them- 
selves. 

But it is not merely through large increase in size and 
armor, that a revolution in building warships may be 
caused. Radical changes in ordnance and in speed have 
had the same result. For example, the effectiveness of 
12-inch as against 8-inch guns, and of 6-inch as against 
4-inch guns, was shown in the battle of the Falkland Is- 
lands last December, when the Invincible and Inflexible 
sunk the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the Glasgow 
sunk the Leipzig. The loss of the Bluecher, in the Battle 
of the North Sea, and of the Good Hope and Monmouth, 
in the Battle of the Pacific, because of their relative slow- 
ness, illustrates the revolutionary results of better types 
of engines and fuel. " If you can outsail and outshoot 



196 PREPAREDNESS 

your opponent, the battle is yours ! " so runs the rule at 
present in vogue. 

The development of the battle cruiser, which, like the 
dreadnought, is constantly growing in size and yet far 
surpasses it in speed, threatens to supersede even the su- 
perdreadnought. Captain Hobson, among other naval 
experts, pins his faith to this new type of warship, and 
demands that we should add them to our navy with 40,- 
000 tons' displacement and with a speed of 30 knots. 

Even battle-cruisers of the Queen Elizabeth type, 
of which Great Britain is now building five more, — with 
main batteries of eight 15-inch guns, — have a speed of 25 
knots ; and they are considered to have outclassed the 
Oklahomas and Pennsylvanias, with 14-inch guns and a 
speed of 21 knots. 

As for the battleship of whatever type, there are ex- 
perts who confidently declare that its era has passed away 
forever. What steam did to the sail, what the iron-clad 
did to the wooden hull, the submarine and airship have 
done to the battleship : made it a back number. Take, for 
example, the Monitor, that proud sovereign of the seas, 
which is credited with having turned the tide of war that 
was running against the Union a half-century ago, and 
revolutionized the art of naval warfare in its day. Many 
later and greatly improved monitors have been added 
since that time to our navy. But what are they now? 
They have not been utterly discarded, as yet; but they 
have been resuscitated to serve the submarines as travel- 
ing blacksmith shops and gasoline tanks ! 

Consider, again, the pre-dreadnought battleships, those 
supreme sea-kings of a short decade ago. We have 22 
of them, but naval experts declare that 13 of these "be- 
long about as much to the first line of battleships as a 
2-cylinder car belongs to the first line of automobiles." 

The super-dreadnought, too, which now wears the 
Monitor's crown as sovereign of the seas, is destined, — 
and that right soon, — to the limbo of the has-beens. One 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 197 

school of critics and inventors declare that its knell has 
been sounded, and that it is already being replaced in Ger- 
many by the unsinkable ship. Such a ship, of the Gath- 
mann type, is provided with a triple hull of steel, each 
of the three steel coats only three-fourths of an inch 
thick, but enclosing air-spaces of 40 and 30 inches be- 
tween them. By so simple a device, it has been found 
possible to build warships that are unsinkable by mines, 
torpedoes or high explosive shells. The other school of 
critics of the battleship insist that the submarine will 
soon put it out of business. It appears that it is im- 
possible to protect the hull of a battleship against the 
torpedoes or high explosive shells of the submarine. 
And this brings us to a new era in naval warfare, namely, 
warfare under the sea. 

C. PREPAREDNESS UNDER THE SEA 

Warfare on a large scale under the earth, under the 
sky, and under the sea, has been the preeminent charac- 
teristic of the present great struggle. Intrenchments, 
airships and submarines have filled the fields of battle, 
the newspapers, and the minds of non-combatants alike. 

Submarine Boats 

Of these, the submarine, while it may not have achieved 
more than the others, has been most prominent in the 
popular mind. It is natural, therefore, that all pro- 
grammes of preparedness should stress this item strongly. 
The United States, particularly, claims to be a non-ag- 
gressive power, and looking at armaments from the point 
of view of defense regards the submarine as of highest 
value to it for defensive purposes ; this value, it believes, 
is greatly enhanced because of the relatively long coast- 
line. 

But the " defensive " purpose for which the sub- 
marine has proved its value during this war is not only 
that of defending a coast line against attack, — as in the 



198 PREPAREDNESS 

case of the German and Belgian coasts and the Darda- 
nelles, — but also of defending battleships against battle- 
ships, and of attacking merchantmen, transports, sea- 
ports, and even battleships themselves. 

Their defense of battleships was illustrated in the 
Battle of Heligoland Bight, when five British battle 
cruisers pursued four German battle cruisers and sunk 
one of them, the Bluecher, but turned back from the pur- 
suit of the others because of the danger of submarines. 
In the words of the victorious British Admiral : " The 
presence of the enemy's submarines subsequently [after 
the sinking of the Bluecher] necessitated the action being 
broken off." Thus a squadron of the most formidable 
capital ships, running at high speed and accompanied by 
torpedo boat destroyers, was checked by the appearance, 
— planned beforehand or summoned during the pursuit. — 
of a line of submarines. If the German Admiral had 
been accompanied by submarines at the beginning of his 
raid on the English coast, the question may well be raised 
as to the success of his attempted invasion. 

The attack of German submarines upon belligerent and 
contraband-carrying merchantmen was for many weeks 
one of the spectacular and significant features of the 
present war. 

The proclamation by the Germans of " a war zone " 
around the British Isles, and the activity of their sub- 
marines within that zone, are but too familiar to Ameri- 
cans and other neutrals, as well as to the British and 
French. The sinking of the 4-funneled, 32,000-ton Lusi- 
iania, one of the largest of ocean greyhounds and the loss 
of more than 1,000 of its passengers, has shown in most 
dramatic and terrible fashion the effectiveness of the sub- 
marine as against merchantmen. In every week during 
the first year of the war, with the exception of two, the 
German submarines, mines or cruisers inflicted some loss 
on British shipping. Within six weeks, 43 ships were 
sunk in the " war zone " ; in one week, 19 British ships, of 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 199 

a total tonnage of 76,000, fell victims to German sub- 
marines ; in two days, 14 steamers of 47,698 tons, were 
sunk by them. Within twenty-four hours, a single sub- 
marine, the U-29, in a raid in the English Channel, tor- 
pedoed seven steamers, sinking five of them and badly 
injuring two. 

Great Britain has a merchant fleet of about 40,000 
ships, and builds each year more than all the rest of the 
world put together. Hence, it is a long, long way that 
the German submarine must travel before it can attain 
its goal of destroying or seriously injuring Great Brit- 
ain's over-seas commerce. Since the yielding of Ger- 
many to the demands of the United States in regard to 
the protection of neutral lives and property, there has 
been a lull in the submarine activity. The British insist, 
of course, that this is due to an acknowledged failure of 
the submarine campaign ; but Great Britain, with its 
enormous vulnerability in merchantmen and warships, 
has feared and affected to despise the submarine from its 
very inception. It seems entirely possible that Admiral 
von Tirpitz, while forced to yield on the question of neu- 
tral lives, is strenuously utilizing German efficiency in 
the development and construction of his beloved subma- 
rines, and will yet launch an attack overpowering in its 
intensity upon both merchantman and warship. 

Meanwhile, in recent weeks, the British submarines 
have found their way into the Baltic, and are making 
havoc among the German merchant-ships which carry 
trade to and from Scandinavia, and supplies and recruits 
to Russia. Within a period of twelve days, these sub- 
marines have sunk 20 German ships, aggregating a ton- 
nage of 38,000. 

Meanwhile, also, the German people remain confident 
of the ultimate success of the " submarine net around the 
British Isles." The " toll of our tireless U-boats," they 
insist, "has amounted to more than $1,000,000 per 
week " ; and they declare that the British censor has not 



200 PREPAREDNESS 

permitted half the truth about British losses to be known. 
These losses, they say, include many small fishing smacks, 
of no great value in themselves, but of very great impor- 
tance in protecting Britain's coasts, giving warning, as 
they do, by means of their wireless outfit, of the sub- 
marines' approach. 

One of the chief aims of the German submarine is the 
sinking of British troop-ships. Two millions of soldiers 
have been transported by them, many of these crossing 
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. So well guarded in 
every possible way are these troop-ships, however, that 
thus far only one of them is known to have fallen a vic- 
tim. The sinking of the Royal Edward, by a submarine 
in the Aegean Sea, on August 14, 191 5, caused the loss 
of more than 1,000 men, and proved the vulnerability of 
both the Mediterranean Route and the troop-ship. 

On that same ominous day, also, occurred another evi- 
dence of the submarines' power, when three English 
towns, Whitehouse, Harrington and Parton, on the Irish 
Sea, near Solway Firth, were bombarded by them. Thus 
not only the airship, but the submarine as well, has 
broken the charmed ring around the British Isles. 

Dreadnoughts and battle cruisers have not yet been 
attacked or sunk by the submarine ; but the possibility 
of their being mastered by it has been brought near to cer- 
tainty by the retreat of the five British battle cruisers men- 
tioned above ; ^ and already armored cruisers and even 
pre-dreadnought battleships have fallen a prey to it on 
several occasions. The French armored cruiser Leon 
Gambetta of 12,416 tons' displacement, was sunk by the 
Austrian submarine, U-5, of 273 tons' displacement. The 
British armored cruisers, the Hogue, Cressy and Aboukir, 
each of 12,000 tons' displacement and a speed of 22 knots, 
were sunk at one time by the U-g, which soon afterwards 
sunk the Hawke of 7,350 tons and 19 knots; and the 
British battleship Formidable, of 15,000 tons and 18 
knots, was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine, 

* See page 198. 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 201 

probably the U-21, of 800 tons and 17 knots. In the Sea 
of Marmora, up to October 26, 191 5, the British premier 
stated, the British submarines had sunk or damaged 2 
battleships, 5 gunboats, i torpedo boat, 8 transports and 
197 supply ships. 

The British battleships. Ocean and Irresistible, of 13,- 
000 and 15,000 tons, and 18.5 and 18 knots, respectively, 
and the French battleship, Bouvet, of 12,000 tons and 18 
knots, were sunk in the Dardanelles ; these, too, have 
been claimed as prey of the submarine although the Brit- 
ish and French Admiralties insist that they were blown 
up by floating mines. From the Baltic, also, come con- 
flicting reports of the sinking of German cruisers and 
pre-dreadnoughts by British submarines. 

Submarine Battleships 

The rapid development of the submarine during the 
war has been as astounding as its fighting effectiveness. 
When the war began, Germany's submarines had an ef- 
fective cruising radius, on the surface of the sea, of 
less than 1,000 miles. After six months of war, their 
exploits proved that this radius had been increased to 
3,000 miles. So astonishing were the distances made by 
them from their base of fuel supply, that the wild theory 
arose that " the Germans have under-water deposits of 
fuel oil cached about the coast of Great Britain, from 
which the browsing submarines replenish their tanks." 
" The latest " type is now said to possess a cruising radius 
of 6,000 miles; and one of this type made its way, with 
its original supply of fuel, from Wilhelmshaven to Con- 
stantinople. When this latter feat was accomplished, 
the Neueste Nachrichten, of Munich, pointed out the fact 
that the distance from Bremen to New York is 3,600 
miles, and expressed " the hope that this submarine ex- 
ploit will make the war party in the United States think 
twice." 

Meanwhile, the experts in our own country are en- 



202 PREPAREDNESS 

deavoring to respond to this warning with another equally 
impressive. During this summer, the Lake Torpedo 
Boat Co., of Bridgeport, Connecticut, tested their new 
submarine G-J, and declared that it can cross the Atlantic 
Ocean, sink an enemy's ship, and return to the American 
coast, without dependence on any base of supplies other 
than the home-base. 

Again, the submarine which required, a few years ago, 
twenty minutes to sink below the surface, can now do so 
in less than three. Its speed has been increased, on the 
surface, from lo knots to 22, and under the surface from 
5 knots to 16. A greater increase of speed is requisite 
in the submarine before it can keep pace with or over- 
take a warship of the battle cruiser type. But because of 
its diminutive size, and its ability to conceal beneath the 
water everything but its periscope, it can not be detected 
by a warship, under normal circumstances, at more than 
five miles' distance ; and since it can see a warship 
at a distance of ten miles, it can creep up with im- 
punity upon a prey of even the largest type and greatest 
speed. 

Even when its intended victim is surrounded by fields 
of mines, it can sink beneath them, and even beneath 
torpedo nets, and then rising beneath the ship at anchor 
or under slow speed can attach to it a mine that can be 
exploded by an electric time-fuse when the submarine 
has made good its escape. The exploit of a British sub- 
marine in diving under five rows of mines and torpe- 
doing a Turkish warship is a striking example of this 
kind of submarine warfare. It is even possible for a 
single submarine to attach bombs to a row of warships 
in turn, and then blow them up all at once; or to launch 
its torpedoes into each of them in turn. The German U-Q 
showed the success of this, when it sank in the North 
Sea at one time the British armored cruisers, the Hogue, 
Cressy and Ahoiikir, each of 12,000 tons' displacement 
and a speed of 22 knots; and followed this achievement 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 203 

by sinking the protected cruiser, the Hawke, of 7,350 tons 
and 19 knots. 

Admiral Dewey says of the effectiveness of subma- 
rines against battleships, " From what I have seen of the 
work of the submarines, it is my belief that I could not 
have held that bay [Manila] with my squadron of fifteen 
ships if the enemy had had two of these boats with de- 
termined operators on board. We should have had to 
be constantly on the watch, never knowing when the 
blow would fall. The human frame could not have 
stood it." 

With the development of an Edison undersea battery, 
making possible a submersion of 100 days and an under- 
surface cruising-range of 150 miles, the submarine is 
expected to increase enormously its capacity for terror- 
izing and wearing down the crews of enemy ships. But 
it has already earned the name of " super-submarine," 
or " undersea battleship," or " submarine dreadnought," 
by its recent extraordinary increase in size and fighting 
capabilities. Take Germany's recent experience, for ex- 
ample. Six years ago, it had only four small submarine 
boats, the U-i to U-4, designed merely for coast defense, 
and very feeble even for that purpose. Within the next 
year, 1909-10, it built eight, the U-5 to U-12, with 300 
tons' displacement and a speed of 13 knots on the surface 
and 9 knots under it. During the four years preceding 
the war, it built fifteen, the U-13 to U-2'j, with a dis- 
placement of 900 tons and a speed of 17 and 12 knots. In 
these years of war, 1914-16, no one outside of Germany 
knows what further progress has been made ; but the ex- 
ploits of the lJ-2g have given the rest of the world stimu- 
lating food for imagination as to what it must have been. 

At the beginning of our quarrel with Germany, Ad- 
miral von Tirpitz declared that his submarines were so 
fragile and slow as compared with the ocean liners, that 
it was impossible for them either to hail their intended 
victim and compel it to submit to search for non-contra- 



204 PREPAREDNESS 

band cargo and neutral passengers, or to afford an op- 
portunity for passengers and crew to take to the boats. 
The arrival of destroyers, or the use of guns by the mer- 
chantmen, or even a resort to ramming, would make this 
impossible, he claimed. Germany's yielding to neutral 
demands, as championed by the United States, is shrewdly 
suspected to have been due in large part to its confidence 
in its ability to make the submarine superior to even the 
armed merchantmen by converting submarine boats into 
submarine battleships. Some of its latest submarines 
like the U-21, have been given a displacement of 800 tons, 
a speed of 18 knots on the surface and 12 when sub- 
merged; a capability of sinking to a depth of 150 feet; 
an armament of four torpedo-tubes and two 3-inch, 14- 
pounder, quick-firing guns ; and an armor of Krupp plat- 
ing. The world has already received a hint of what these 
guns can accomplish from the shelling of the Armenian 
and the Anglo-Calif ornian. 

What further developments in these directions Ger- 
many's most recent submarines have attained, only they 
who live will see. Meanwhile, American inventors and 
constructors have been stimulated by German achieve- 
ments to push on in the same direction, and if possible to 
surpass them. The three submarines of the L-type, au- 
thorized by Congress at its last session, are to have a 
displacement of 450 tons, and a speed of 14 knots on the 
surface and 1 1 knots submerged ; they are also to be 
equipped, in addition to having the usual tubes for the 
launching of torpedoes, with a battery of 3-inch guns. 
These guns, with an effective range of 2^ to 3 miles, 
together with the submarines' speed of 14 knots, will 
make the boats or ships of this class miniature cruisers, 
which no merchant-ship could defy or ignore. But an- 
other class of submarines is already projected, namely, 
those of the M-type, which are to be larger, faster and 
heavier armed. These are to have 600 tons' displace- 
ment, a speed on the surface of from 20 to 23 knots, and 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 205 

a battery of 6-inch guns. Their guns are to be of the 
disappearing type, automatically sinking into the hull 
after each discharge. When the new invention which 
obviates the necessity of showing their periscopes above 
the water, is applied to submarines, as is said to be the 
case with the U. S. submarine Schley, they will be en- 
abled to remain entirely submerged and at the same time 
discover and attack their enemy on the surface. And 
when the next logical step is taken of enabling the sub- 
marine to see under the water, we may confidently ex- 
pect to have only underwater battleships and underwater 
naval fights. 

It was in view of such possible developments as these 
that a British admiral and expert naval constructor, Sir 
Percy Scott, was led to declare in June, 1914, that money 
spent on dreadnoughts is just so much money thrown into 
the sea, for submarines would surely antiquate battle- 
ships. Nine months later, after seven months of the 
present war, another naval expert, who invented and 
constructed a type of submarine now used in Europe, 
declared in a lecture delivered before the Society of Civil 
Engineers in Paris, that submarines would drive battle- 
ships from the sea, as surely as railroads have banished 
stages-coaches, and trolley-cars replaced horse-cars. 

The Kaiser took the British Admiral's prophecy so 
seriously that he largely increased the German programme 
for submarines for the year 1914. Our own Secretary of 
the Navy, in the light of the present war, has declared : 
" The main defense of the United States in the wars of 
the future will be the aeroplane and the submarine. . . . 
Men who formerly were regarded as unreasonable en- 
thusiasts for submarines find themselves in every sense 
justified by what already has occurred abroad." 

One of these " unreasonable enthusiasts," who pos- 
sesses also some scientific claims to a hearing, declares : 
" The future history of the world will be far different 
from what it would otherwise have been, because of the 



206 PREPAREDNESS 

submarine. The mastership of the seas has passed from 
every nation. Defence is made perfectly practicable 
against overseas expeditions everywhere. Japan and 
Great Britain are forever safe from invasion once their 
submarine forces are developed ; but they are capable of 
being starved by their enemies. We of continental situa- 
tion are in better case than ever before as against trans- 
marine foes, actual or potential. . . . The submarine 
gives us only two possible enemies with whom we can 
wage war, — Canada and Mexico. ... It carries out all 
over the seas a stalemate as complete as that which ex- 
ists in the trenches in France ; a stalemate in which real 
battles are impossible, in which destructive war on com- 
merce is raised to the nth power, and in which world 
intercourse must be based on peace, or in so far aban- 
doned as to make the very existence of the insular com- 
mercial nations hazardous." This counsellor, accordingly, 
admonishes us to aim at becoming invulnerable rather 
than invincible; to defend ourselves by many submarines, 
rather than to menace other nations by a small number 
of battleships. 

How Many Do We Need? 

Our conservative Naval Board is evidently far from 
sure of what constitutes now, or will constitute in the 
near future, either invulnerability or invincibility; and 
it accordingly attempts to provide for all possible contin- 
gencies by urging, in the new programme of prepared- 
ness, not only 76 battleships of the five kinds described, 
but also 15 fleet, or sea-going, submarines and 85 coast 
submarines. This programme would give us about no 
" up-to-date " submarines ; for although we had about 
46 before the 10 new ones now building were authorized, 
almost all of these are utterly defective or antiquated. 
Commander Yates Stirling, in command of the Atlantic 
flotilla of submarines, testified before a congressional 
committee last winter that, through lack of proper upkeep, 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 207 

the efficiency of his flotilla had so far deteriorated that 
it contained only one submarine capable of remaining sub- 
merged with safety for more than fifteen minutes ! The 
submarines in the Pacific flotilla are apparently in as bad 
condition, to judge of them by the four boats of the F-type 
which are located there. One of this type, the F-4, dove 
last Spring in the harbor of Honolulu and did not come up 
again. Its crew of twenty men was lost; it was not re- 
covered until after five months of efifort and the expendi- 
ture of $20,000; and it had cost, three years before, a 
half-million dollars. After investigation, a report of the 
experts has condemned as dangerous and useless the other 
three boats of its type. 

In view of such experiences, even more conservatism 
in regard to submarines, on the part of the Naval Board, 
would be highly commendable. Their experimental stage ; 
their rapid changes in type ; and their increase in size, 
speed and armament, all make them a wholly unknown 
and almost incalculable factor in warfare. The only 
thing entirely definite about them is their increasing cost. 
The sea-going type at present building cost about $1,000,- 
000; the 15 additional ones to be built by 1921 are esti- 
mated at present to cost 50 per cent. more. The coast- 
defense type just contracted for average less than $550,- 
000; the 85 new ones to be built by 1921 are estimated 
now to cost $100,000 more per boat! There is every 
reason to expect a still greater increase in price during 
the next five years ; but, accepting the present estimates, 
we are asked to invest $77,750,000 in 100 new submarines, 
— not to mention the cost of maintenance, — which may 
quite probably be antiquated by the time we have bought 
and paid for them. 

Even in point of mere numbers, our no " up-to-date " 
submarines are not overwhelmingly impressive and re- 
assuring, in view of the immense coast-line which they 
are supposed to defend, and in view of the " enemy " sub- 
marines with which they are supposed to compete. For 



208 PREPAREDNESS 

example, Great Britain was credited with 84, at the be- 
ginning of this war; France, 76; and Germany, 54. The 
" Almanach de Gotha " gave Germany 72 at the beginning 
of 191 5 ; but what it, or Great Britain, or Japan, has now, 
or will have at the end of the war, only the wildest of 
imaginations would undertake to hazard a guess. 

Submarine Mines and Torpedoes 

The Russo-Japanese War of 1905-06 first brought into 
great prominence the use of submarine mines in naval 
warfare. During that war, the Russians and Japanese 
sowed floating and anchored mines in the high seas, as 
well as within the territorial waters of China and Japan. 
These mines caused much destruction to life and ship- 
ping, both warlike and mercantile, during the war; and 
for several years afterwards, scores of ships and boats 
and hundreds of lives were destroyed by these " demons 
of the sea." A strenuous effort was made at the Second 
Hague Conference to curb the use of both anchored and 
unanchored, or floating, mines. But in the present war, 
this restraint has been flung aside, and almost unrestricted 
use is being made of both kinds and in many waters. 
German mines, for example, have been sowed by mer- 
chantmen, masquerading as neutrals, or by submarines, 
throughout British waters, in the Adriatic, Mediter- 
ranean, Aegean and North Seas, and even on the north- 
ern coasts of Norway and Russia. Russian and other 
steamships have been obliged to wait for a week at a 
time in Archangel Channel, while trawlers swept the 
channel clear of floating and cabled mines. Maximilian 
Harden, in a lecture in Berlin last Spring, prophesied 
that, " as soon as we have succeeded in extending the 
radius of action of the four large submarine types, they 
can be used for the lavish laying of mines ; then, on a 
certain morning the Island Kingdom will find itself sur- 
rounded by a new circle of mines, and its mastership of 
the sea will be at an end." This prophecy has not yet 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 209 

been realized, as far as the final result is concerned ; but 
many mines have been sown, and they have done large 
damage to shipping in the North Sea, the English Chan- 
nel, and elsewhere. The naval experts of the London 
Times, the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle, have 
been warning England of the imminent and fatal danger 
of the submarine torpedo and the mine ; and many inci- 
dents have furnished points to their warning. The sink- 
ing of the Pathfinder and Malachite by portable mines, 
attached by the submarine U-21, and with fuses so placed 
as to blow holes below the water line, are two such in- 
cidents out of many. The sinking of the British battle- 
ships, Irresistible and Ocean, and the French battleship 
Boiwet, in the Dardanelles, is admitted by the British and 
French admiralties to have been caused by floating mines, 
while the Turkish government claims it to have been 
caused by automobile torpedoes. 

To the menace of the mine and automobile torpedo, 
has been added the incalculable terror of the " wireless " 
torpedo, which has been developed during the present 
war. This torpedo is so devised that its direction, speed 
and submergence can be controlled from the shore or from 
shipboard, by means of wireless apparatus, even at a 
distance, it is said, of ten or twelve miles. It is equipped 
with masts that rise and fall like plunger elevators, and 
thus evade the enemy's fire ; with " eyes " of silenium 
plate that follow obediently the rays of light directed into 
them; and with automatic engines, steering-gear and 
weapons. The " age of machinery," in warfare as in 
everything else, is surely upon us. With wireless plants 
controlling the action of crewless ships and aeroplanes, 
it is believed that " no battleship or other vessel of an 
enemy could even get within the zone of action of these 
steel automatic craft, without incurring a risk of annihi- 
lation amounting almost to certainty." 

Recognizing the value of mines for defensive purposes, 
the United States has planted mine fields on various parts 



210 PREPAREDNESS 

of the coast, around the entrance to the Panama Canal, 
and around Pearl Islands in the Pacific. The United 
States Marine Corps have conducted experiments in 
Philadelphia which show that within two hours a mining 
company can assemble and plant 20 mines, weighing from 
350 to 800 pounds; and that within 24 hours it could 
plant 300 mines, and thus give to the city the control of 
Delaware Bay, so far as the passage of ships is con- 
cerned. 

For the laying of mines at sea, we are said to be very 
poorly provided. Rear-Admiral Fiske testified last De- 
cember before the House Committee on Naval Afifairs 
that our navy has only one mine-layer, the San Francisco, 
capable of laying 330 mines, but that we expect to have an 
additional one in two or three months. Germany, at 
the beginning of the war, had five regular mine-layers, 
and during the war has equipped submarines for the 
same service. 

In torpedoes, also, we are said to be badly ofif. A few 
months ago, we had only 355 on hand, — about enough to 
supply one to each tube in the navy, whereas, experts tell 
us, we should have scores for each tube. Aside from a 
wholly insufficient supply, our torpedoes for battleship 
use are said to be obsolete. Rear-Admiral Straus testi- 
fied that all battleships in commission now, or which will 
be in commission before the Nevada and the Oklahoma 
are completed, are equipped with a short-range torpedo 
which may be considered obsolete for the battle fleet. 

Anti-Submarine Devices 

The enthusiasts over mines and torpedoes naturally in- 
sist that if we are really preparing for defense, we should 
lay chief stress on mines and torpedoes, the two agencies 
that have been most prominent in naval warfare this year, 
and not squander millions on obsolete or obsolescent bat- 
tleships for use above the water. But the battleship en- 
thusiasts, while admitting the great power of submarine 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 211 

mines and torpedoes, point to the curbing of that power 
by numerous and varied devices. Among these may be 
mentioned the use of England's great fleet of fishing- 
boats, more than 2,000 of which have been equipped with 
wireless outfit for reporting the presence of submarines, 
or even for ramming them, and for trawling or dredging 
for mines. Many a German submarine boat is believed to 
have missed its intended prey through timely warning 
by British fishing-smacks, though many of the latter have 
themselves fallen victims. Mine-fields, too, have been 
uprooted, and at least one German submarine, the U-14, 
has been rammed and sunk by them. Hundreds of trawl- 
ers are constantly dragging the waters around the British 
Isles and France in search of mines, floating singly or in 
fields ; and all the British fleets are equipped with mine 
sweepers for the protection, primarily, of battleships. 
Not infrequently, the mine-sweepers themselves are blown 
up by the mines, as has been the case with a number of 
those accompanying the allied fleets to the Dardanelles. 

The war has brought out new devices for trapping tor- 
pedoes and snaring submarines, as well as for removing 
mines. One torpedo-net has been perfected, which is 
held to be well worth its cost of $75,000, even though 
scores of them are necessary for the protection of war- 
ships, sailing singly or in fleets. The Secretary of the 
Navy includes in the new programme the sum of $480,- 
000 for " torpedo defense nets for battleships." At $75,- 
000 apiece, this large sum will not go very far. 

To snare the subtle submarine, a net of steel wire has 
been invented, which is electrically connected with the 
shore, so that when a submarine strikes it and becomes 
entangled in it, a destroyer is summoned for its destruc- 
tion. Another net, — an American invention, — is made 
of iron pipes, connected in air-tight sections, the inter- 
vening spaces filled with wire or rope mesh, and reen- 
forced by mines fastened in the mesh. The inventor of 
this net claims that the British government is negotiating 



212 PREPAREDNESS 

for the laying of it to protect the transport of troops and 
supplies from England to the Continent ; and he also 
claims that his net could he stretched at the rate of a mile 
a day from Long Island to the Jersey and Connecticut 
coasts, thus protecting New York harbor " at a cost 
ridicuously low compared with the cost of many modem 
war appliances." 

Still another promising device is to fill the water near 
battleships or seaports with circular wire nooses, each 
supplied with eight trailing ropes, 150 feet in length, 
which become entangled in the submarine's propellers, 
as soon as it thrusts its nose into the noose. This snare 
is equipped also with a hemispherical buoy or float, in 
which there is a signal-flare that burns upon the surface 
of the water as soon as the submarine is caught, and thus 
summons a destroyer to the attack. 

These devices are based on the principle that the easiest 
way to catch a fish is to net him and not to swim after 
him. But the British, in their struggle with the German 
submarines, are said to have developed the sport of Izaak 
Walton into a popular chase of undersea boats. A nu- 
merous fleet of small electric or gasoline motor boats, — 
automobile boats, — have been built, and equipped with 
small guns ; these are said to be too swift to become the 
prey of submarines and, armed adequately to deal with 
them, and stationed at distances of five miles apart, are 
successfully patrolling Britain's shores. More than 50 
German submarines are claimed by the British govern- 
ment to have been destroyed by one or more of these de- 
vices, although the German government has announced 
the loss of only 7, and declares that it now has more sub- 
marines than at the beginning of the submarine w^arfare. 

The United States is preparing to imitate some at least 
of these methods of dealing with submarines, and the 
Navy Department is cooperating with the Waterway 
League of New York, whose members possess 500 swift 
motor boats. A United States destroyer participated in 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 213 

the maneuvers of these " auxiliaries of the navy " last 
summer, on Jamaica Bay. Chicago, not to be outdone 
by New York, has mobilized its local fleet of 200 power- 
boats, and demanded of the navy a submarine to prac- 
tise with and on, and of the government an enrollment 
of 300,000 men and officers to be trained in the use of 
rapid-fire guns, torpedo tubes, wireless and other signal- 
ling equipment. This movement to organize " a reserve 
scout fleet " on the Great Lakes may find an obstacle 
in the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 181 7, which forbids the 
presence on the Lakes of armed ships of more than a 
total displacement of 400 tons. Submarine detectors, 
consisting of microphones which the propellers of sub- 
marines and warships cause to vibrate and thus to trans- 
mit a warning signal to the shore, are now being success- 
fully tested in Long Island Sound. 

An American college professor, also, has developed a 
plan for the construction of miniature submarines, so 
small that one man can operate them. He advocates 
building a large flock or swarm of these for every port, 
and turning them loose upon hostile submarines, to 
" sting them to death." The difficulty vith this device 
at present is that the submarine, large or small, while it 
has proved itself capable of fighting all other kinds of 
watercraft, cannot fight others of its kind. Its " eyes " 
have not yet been developed so that it can see other sub- 
marines under water; hence a swarm of small " jitney " 
submarines would be more likely to sting each other to 
death than their less numerous foe. 

The aeroplane, however, from its exalted position, can 
obtain a bird's-eye view of submarines even when sub- 
merged to a depth of 150 feet; and the aeroplane has al- 
ready been used against the submarine with success. For 
example, British aviators have bombarded seaports in 
Belgium, destroying a hangar, a dirigible airship, and two 
submarines ; this feat was accomplished by moonlight. 

From this short study of a long array of preparedness. 



^14 PREPAREDNESS 

and re-preparedness, and counter-preparedness, under 
the sea, it will be readily understood why the preparedness 
upon the surface is almost duplicated, though at present 
on a smaller scale, beneath the waves. It will be readily 
understood, also, why the whole science and art of naval 
warfare have been thrown into turmoil, and why, in the 
throes of a veritable revolution, no one is wise enough to 
forecast the future. Those who pretend to do so are not 
good pilots for our ship of state. 

D. SPEED, FUEL AND ENGINES 

While two rival schools of naval experts are develop- 
ing as rapidly as possible the building of overwater and 
underwater craft, a third school is devoting itself to the 
increase in the speed of water craft of all kinds. This 
school is chiefly concerned with the questions of fuel and 
engines. 

In the olden times, when the wind or human muscle were 
alone available, the problem of " fuel " was simple and 
easy. But when steam, gasoline, heavy oils and electric- 
ity are at man's command, the problem is complex and 
difficult. The substitution of oils for coal, as fuel, had 
begun before the present war; and it was soon found 
that this substitution had changed the whole problem 
of coaling-stations and naval bases, had given ships of 
all kinds a far greater cruising radius, and had saved 
space for the installation of more and heavier guns. The 
use of oils by destroyers, too, has developed the possi- 
bility of producing thick volumes of smoke, extending 
for loo miles in front of a fleet, behind which, as behind 
a screen or protecting blanket, escape from submarines 
or superior warships may be effected, or as from behind 
an ambush, the larger ships may dash to the attack. 

Electricity as a motive-power has many advantages 
over both coal and oils ; but the main difficulty with it 
lies in its generation. The use of lead batteries in sub- 
marines, for example, is quite general throughout the 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 215 

world ; but it has been found that salt water leaking into 
the batteries generates sufficient quantities of chlorine 
gas to kill the crew. This appears to have been the case 
with the F-4 of the United States, and with one or more 
of the submarines of France. The United States led the 
way in equipping the first collier, the Jupiter, with elec- 
tric propulsion ; and it is experimenting with the electric 
drive for its new battleship, the California. The electric 
engine for the latter is $200,000 cheaper than would be a 
steam turbine installation. Mr. Edison has developed a 
nickel submarine battery, which is said to prevent all 
danger of chlorine, sulphuric and carbonic gases ; to give 
to a submarine a submerged cruising- range of 150 miles; 
and to enable a submerged crew to live for 100 days ! 

The Diesel, Campbell, Mietz and Heiss, and other oil 
engines are competing with the older gas engines and the 
newer petrol engines, with varying and, as yet, indecisive 
results. The French submarines, for example, have run 
the circuit of steam, petrol, heavy oil and steam; the 
Diesel heavy oil engine has been discarded in them during 
the present war, it is said, and a return made to steam. 
On the other hand, one type of submarines now being 
constructed by the United States is being fitted with a 
Swiss engine, which burns heavy oil, and which drives 
both on the surface and under water, so that the former 
double engine, — one for gasoline on the surface, the other 
for electricity under the surface, — is discarded in this 
type. This latter engine is said to be so efficient that 
" the tiny G-s can carry enough fuel to cross the Atlantic 
twice without stopping for a new supply." 

Evidently, in the use of engines and fuel in warships, 
as in every other item of the military and naval pro- 
gramme, there is raging a great struggle for existence, 
and no man can yet say which is the fittest to survive. 
The whole world is in the stage of experimentation ; and 
experiment is both very costly and wholly uncertain. 



216 PREPAREDNESS 

E. ARMOR, EXPLOSIVES AND PROJECTILES 

Their Endless Competition 

In another great department of naval warfare, there 
is an eternal rivalry between the conflicting elements of 
defense and attack, namely, armor plate, on the one side, 
and explosives and projectiles on the other. Especially 
since the iron-clad Virginia, or Merrimac, sunk three 
wooden frigates in Hampton Roads, a half century ago, 
and the iron-clad Monitor, with its revolving turret, put 
the Merrimac out of the fighting, this contest between ar- 
mor and missile has been constant and exceptionally bit- 
ter, but with no sign of ending. 

" Protected cruisers " have been eclipsed by " armored 
cruisers," and " armored cruisers " by " battle cruisers," 
and " battle cruisers " by " battleships," and " battle- 
ships " by " dreadnoughts," and " dreadnoughts " by 
" superdreadnoughts." 

Cast-iron round shot gave way to elongated projectiles 
for rifled guns, solid shot has been followed by case shot, 
and case shot by common shell, and common shell by 
shrapnel shell, and shrapnel shell by palliser shell. The 
whole world at present seems to have gone mad over 
shells, — one-half to procure and use them, the other half 
to manufacture and sell them. 

To meet this development in shells, ship-builders have 
called every resource into use in the protection of hulls. 
Wooden hulls gave place to wrought iron, and wrought 
iron to steel; the iron hulls were sheathed in wrought iron 
plates; these were discarded for compound plates ; har- 
veyized steel, and alloys of nickel-chrome, molybdenum 
and vanadium, followed in quick succession. 

The attacking party met this challenge by substituting 
steel for iron guns, and rifled-bores for smooth-bores ; 
and by supplying them with Whitehead fish torpedoes. 

The defending party countered by increasing the thick- 
ness of iron armor from 4^ inches, in 1855, to 53^2 inches 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 217 

in 1861, to 7 inches in 1867, to 24 inches in 1873. When 
compound plates succeeded, the thickness could be re- 
duced to 16 inches, in 1874, but soon increased to 18 
inches in 1880. Harveyized plates and Krupp's nickel- 
chromium-steel combination again enabled the armor to 
be reduced to 9.5 inches; but it has again increased to 15 
inches. 

The rifled guns had done for the earlier kinds of ar- 
mor, but to meet the new increase in quality and thick- 
ness, the guns were enlarged from 7-inch to 9-inch, in 
1867, to 12-inch in 1900, to 13.5-inch, in 1910, to 14-inch 
in 1914, and this year to 16 inches! At the same 
time, their calibre was increased from 40 to 45 to 50. 
But the new kinds of armor were very " tough custo- 
mers," and the increasing size of guns alone was not suffi- 
cient to overcome them. The weight of shells was in- 
creased from 100 pounds to 380 pounds, to 850 pounds, 
to 1,675 pounds, to 1,950 pounds; and the explosives with 
which they were propelled and charged gave rise to a 
whole tribe of chemical ishmaelites : Dynamite was bom 
in 1864, and amberite, axite, balistite, bavarite, bobbi- 
nite, carmonite, cheddite, cordite, dahmenite, donarite, 
duplexite, ecrasite, electronite. fractorite, hellhoffite, jah- 
nite, kinetite, lyddite, melinite, oxonite, panclastite, pem- 
brite, pertite, petrolite, picrinite, potentite, progressite, 
rexite, roburite, romite, solenite, thunderite, titanite, tur- 
pinite, vigorite and westfalite, have almost exhausted the 
alphabet for names, and have filled warfare with the 
fumes and furies which help to make Sherman's defini- 
tion of it entirely correct. Nitrates, chlorates, chromates 
and picrates have made the fulminates vie with the hit- 
tites and the chemical ishmaelites above-mentioned. Gun- 
powder has been outclassed by gun-cotton ; picric acid 
has excelled gun-cotton; and nitroglycerin has spelled 
terror with a big " T," 

Sir James Thompson, in his Romanes Lecture at Ox- 
ford in July, 1914, announced the possibility of harness- 



218 PREPAREDNESS 

ing atomic energy to the uses of man by causing a single 
electron to ooze from an electric light wire, which, al- 
though it is the mildest form of atomic energy, generates 
enough power to run the Mauretania across the Atlantic. 
Thus the present war may realize the novelist's dream of 
" atomic bombs," one of which can destroy a city. An 
American inventor has just announced the development 
of a chemical compound which " can melt the thickest 
armor-plate and pass through a battleship or a fort like 
hot lead through butter." A report has come from Paris 
of the invention of a poiidre turpin which, upon explo- 
sion, " asphyxiates every living thing for a mile around." 
We do not hear much from Germany's laboratories ; but 
its military necessity is doubtless the mother of many 
inventions which may verify the belief that they " will 
cause our most destructive weapons of to-day to seem as 
impotent as the cave-dweller's flint beside a 42-centi- 
metre gun." 

Meanwhile, even the 13.5-inch guns have a striking 
energy of 63,187 tons and penetrate a wrought iron plate 
51 inches thick. Their effective range has been increased 
from 750 yards, Trafalgar's record, to 21,000 yards, the 
Queen Eli::abeth's record at Constantinople, or from less 
than half a mile to more than eleven. Each of these mod- 
em guns, says .a naval expert, " has a striking power 
nearly five times greater than that of the whole broadside 
of the largest line-of-battle ship of a century ago, through 
whose lofty wooden walls there grinned tier upon tier of 
smooth-bore cannon." A single broadside from a modem 
battleship runs to more than eight tons ! It is but little 
wonder that the armor-makers are burning the midnight 
oil to overtake the makers of guns and explosives. And 
it has been ever thus. The mechanics and metallurgists 
first invent a kind of armor that is absolutely impenetra- 
ble; and the governments equip their ships with that kind 
of armor plate. Then the chemists and physicists sit up 
for a few nights, and they invent an explosive or projec- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 219 

tile that is absolutely irresistible; and all the ships are 
found to be back numbers. 

Our "Absolute Unpreparedness" 

We are told to-day in the United States that because 
of such recent and rapid developments, not a single one 
of our dreadnoughts, even those which have cost us from 
twelve to fifteen millions of dollars each, and which were 
supposed to be the last word in naval architecture, is ade- 
quately protected against the projectiles and explosives 
invented last! Mr. Louis Gathmann, inventor of the 
famous gun, tells us also that our navy is wholly lacking 
in effective projectiles. " Considered in relation to mod- 
em methods and instruments of warfare," he says, 
" our shells are a joke. Even the largest of them, pro- 
vided for the great 14-inch guns on our newest dread- 
noughts, carry no more than 60 pounds of high explo- 
sives. The 15-inch guns of the English battle cruiser. 
Queen Eli::aheth, throw projectiles that contain 300 
pounds of high explosives. . . A single well-aimed shot 
from one of her guns would be likely to drive in the whole 
side of the new-built Pennsylvania, armor and all, — and 
she runs 26 knots an hour, which is five knots faster 
than our swiftest battleship ! " This critic accordingly 
advises that " the main batteries of our battleships be 
made of 18-inch guns, — four inches larger in calibre than 
the biggest rifles our newest dreadnoughts carry " ; and 
that these guns should throw shells containing 500 pounds 
of high explosive. " With such weapons and projectiles," 
he concludes, " it would not be necessary to hit the most 
formidable enemy ship more than once. . . . The armor 
would be likely to be blown clear through the ship." 

But the defect in such reasoning would appear to be 
that the ship carrying such guns would itself be liable 
to be struck before it could strike the enemy, — especially 
if that enemy were a submarine or a mine. Hence the 
need of better armor. And so goes on the endless and 



220 PREPAREDNESS 

futile struggle. It is futile because it is an attempt to 
make an irresistible force overcome an invincible obsta- 
cle; it is endless because it is the application to w^arfare 
of Twentieth Century science, and Twentieth Century 
science knows no end. 

The Era of Scientists 

The German, British and American navy departments 
have recognized the pre-eminence of science in present- 
day warfare, and have been " mobilizing brains." Thomas 
A. Edison told our Secretary of the Navy that " modem 
warfare has become a matter of chemistry, machinery and 
high explosives." The secretary believed him and ap- 
pointed a new Naval Advisory Board of Invention and 
Development to be associated with a new Bureau of In- 
vention and Development in the Navy Department. Mr. 
Edison and two representatives from each of eight lead- 
ing scientific societies have been appointed members of 
the Advisory Board. Their duty is to develop new de- 
vices, to harness Twentieth Century science to prepared- 
ness ; and they have gone to work mainly along the lines 
of submarines, aeroplanes and the protection of battle- 
ships. The Board unanimously recommended at its first 
meeting that the government should establish a large 
laboratory to be used for experiment and research. The 
estimated cost of the laboratory is $5,000,000, and the 
annual expenditure for operation is placed at from $2.- 
500,000 to $3,000,000. The plan includes the location of 
the laboratory near a large city, and on tidewater, where 
the largest battleships can come to dock. The equipment 
is to include pattern and machine shops, brass and steel 
foundries, a marine railway, chemical, physical and elec- 
trical laboratories, a motion picture department and other 
conveniences which might be needed for the testing and 
development of new inventions or projects. It is pro- 
posed that a naval officer of exceptional experience shall 
be in charge, and that there shall be staffs of chemists 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 221 

and physicists. All of its operations are to be carried on 
in absolute secrecy, and adequate guards to be provided 
for it. 

This new departure has been hailed throughout the 
country with joyous acclaim; it has gone a long way 
towards restoring the waning popularity of the Secretary 
of the Navy ; and it has caused confident expectation that 
the revolution it will inaugurate in our military prepared- 
ness will cause us to be " the grandest tiger in the jun- 
gle." But it may be recalled that both Germany and 
Great Britain have scientists, and have mobilized them for 
the development of naval warfare. It may also be sug- 
gested, that, even though materials and machinery be all- 
important, they must have men to use them; hence the 
personnel of the navy is not altogether insignificant. 

F. NAVY PERSONNEL AND ORGANIZATION 

The advocates of preparedness have urged the con- 
struction of warships of every kind to so large and suc- 
cessful an extent during the past fifteen years, that the 
material side of the navy has outgrown its personnel. 
Even naval officers themselves, w^ho have urged on, and 
rejoiced in, the growing popular demand for more fight- 
ing machines, have become apprehensive because of the 
growing shortage of men to manage those machines. 

Our Shortage of Officers and Men 

Admiral Fletcher forwarded to the Secretary of the 
Navy last December detailed reports from the command- 
ing officers of all the ships in the fleet, and they reported 
unanimously that the shortage of officers and men was 
so serious as to constitute an insurmountable handicap 
to the fleet's fighting efficiency. According to this testi- 
mony, the navy lacks by 10,000 the men fully to man all 
the ships existing even at present which ought to be com- 
missioned upon the outbreak of war. Admiral Badger 
testified before the Naval Committee, at the same time, 



222 PREPAREDNESS 

that " to provide a proper complement for all vessels of 
the navy v^^hich could still be made useful, would require 
an additional force of 18,556 men and 933 line officers." 
Admiral Fiske testified that it would require three years 
to get the personnel up to a standard of efficiency neces- 
sary to enable it successfully to meet an effective enemy. 
Congressman Gardner assured the Congressional Com- 
mittee that, " out of thirty completed battleships, twelve 
are unavailable without a long delay, because of our re- 
fusal to pay the bills for manning them. ... I charge 
that our Navy is 18,000 men short, and a further shortage 
of 40,000 men is in sight. The General Board, which has 
actually made our plans, estimates the enlisted force of 
the Navy as between 30,000 and 50,000 men short for 
war." 

This deficiency, it seems, is found in all ranks of the 
personnel, from the admiral down to the marine; and 
the deficiency appears to be in quality as well as in 
quantity. A distinguished member of the United States 
Senate declared on the floor of that august body that 
there are " a lot of men in command of the navy whom 
a former President of the United States once described 
to me as a lot of wheezy, onion-eyed, old, stufifed pud- 
dings." 

How Can They Be Increased? 

To do away with this undignified not to say dangerous 
condition, the present Secretary of the Navy plans to 
increase the number of eligible officers by persuading 
Congress to increase the number of midshipmen at An- 
napolis from 970, the present number, to 1,200, which is 
the capacity of the Naval Academy. It costs the gov- 
ernment $12,000, on an average, for the education of 
each midshipman ; on this basis, it would cost $6,000,000 
a year to educate 1,200 midshipmen, or a total of $24,- 
000,000 for the period of their four-year course. This 
increase of 230 midshipmen would make itself effective 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 

four years after its adoption ; and four years more would 
be required before the 933 additional which are said to 
be necessary now could be secured in the regular way. 

If a large number of new ships are to be built during 
the next five years, the already large and constantly 
growing shortage in officers would appear to call for the 
establishment of another Academy, or the doubling of 
the present one, at an initial cost of, say, $12,000,000, 
and an annual maintenance of another $24,000,000. 

As for the 18,000 or 19,000 more men who are said to 
be needed in the navy at once, it appears that an act of 
Congress has limited the number of enlisted men to 51,- 
500. Last year, there were 88,900 applicants for enlist- 
ment, but this law prevented the enrollment of more than 
18,948. Hence, to man our existing ships properly, ac- 
cording to the conservative estimate, we should have to 
raise the legal limit by 35 per cent. ; and according to Mr. 
Gardner's estimate of the shortage "in sight" by 115 
per cent. Even this latter estimate is endorsed by such 
naval experts as Mr. Robert W. Neeser and Mr. John 
Hays Hammond, Jr. Mr. Neeser declares that " it is 
murder to send out vessels as wofully unprepared " as 
ours would be, to engage the enemy's fleet. " Of 2,000 
men," he continues, " manning the German ships defeated 
off the Falkland Islands by the British squadron, only 90 
were saved. Does the nation wish to place its citizens in 
such jeopardy?" To prevent such a tragedy and "to 
man properly our existing ships," he insists that 70,000 
men should be in the service. Mr. Hammond's verdict 
is that, " with every resource tapped, we are 30,000 men 
short in our navy. We have 1,900 officers of the line. 
We must have 1,400 more." The new programme pro- 
vides for the addition of 11,500 men and 250 midshipmen. 

The Lack of Training 

But far more serious than deficiency in numbers, it 
appears, is lack of training. Admiral Dewey says on this 



224. PREPAREDNESS 

point : " It cannot be too often repeated that ships with- 
out a trained personnel to man and fight them are use- 
less for the purposes of war. The training needed for 
the purpose is long and arduous, and cannot be done 
after the outbreak of war. This must have been provided 
for long previous to the beginning of hostilities ; and any 
ship of the fleet found at the outbreak of war without pro- 
vision having been made for its manning by officers and 
men trained for service can be counted as only a useless 
mass of steel whose existence leads to a false sense of 
security." 

Mr. Hammond declares that it takes ten years to make 
a well trained officer, and pointedly inquires : " Who will 
insure us peace for that time ? " 

The Naval Reserve 

To avoid maintaining in time of peace, at American 
prices, a number of naval officers and men equal to a 
large standing army, Congress passed at its last session 
the Naval Reserve Bill. This provides for the enroll- 
ment of " citizens of the United States who have been 
or may be entitled to be honorably discharged from the 
United States Navy after not less than a four-year en- 
listment, or after a term of enlistment during minority." 
All ex-sailors and marines enrolled in the Naval Reserve 
are paid from $12 to $100 per annum; and they are not 
required to perform active service in time of peace except 
at their own request. They are required to maintain a 
suitable uniform and to attend a quarterly muster for the 
purpose of inspection and signing the muster-roll, and 
for this they receive transportation expenses. 

This measure was also greeted with acclaim as having 
rich promise of being both economical and effective ; but 
it has not yet called forth so many recruits as it was ex- 
pected to do. In the first six months after its passage, 
only 103 men entered the Naval Reserve. Only two of 
these, it is reported, came forward in New York City, — 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 225 

our largest seaport. This is explained by the argument 
that " modern sea-fighting is a mechanic's job more than 
a sailorman's." But the Navy League is far from satisfied 
with the results of the experiment and is seeking to make 
it a success by securing an enlistment of 50,000 graduates 
of Annapolis, former warrant officers and non-commis- 
sioned officers, and former enlisted men. 

Another form taken by the demand for a naval reserve 
is the plea of the Surgeon-General of the United States, 
who declares there is immediate necessity for 700 medical 
men, under 45 years of age, to act as a reserve force for 
the navy. He also urges that our 18 hospital ships, which 
are capable of caring for 100,000 sick and wounded sail- 
ors, should be provided with a reserve hospital corps of 
men of high type to act as nurses, these to be trained in 
the naval hospitals ; and the training of 800 women 
nurses, who would be absolutely necessary in case of war, 
whereas a corps of only 120 is available at present. 

The Naval Militia 

For a number of years, a Naval Militia in the various 
States has been in existence, and it now numbers about 
7,000 men. But there has been constant complaint of 
inefficiency and lack of training facilities in this militia ; 
and frequent efforts have been made to improve it. The 
new law passed by Congress at its last session is expected 
to bring about more cooperation between the officers of 
the navy and of the militia, and to provide the latter with 
more training facilities. The Secretary of the Navy has 
included in the new program.me the sum of $250,000 for 
the purchase and repair of ships for the use of the naval 
militia of Illinois and Minnesota, and a further sum of 
$60,737.33 for the naval militia as a whole. 

The Volunteer Naval Reserve 

Meanwhile, there has been formed, on private initiative, 
the United States Volunteer Naval Reserve, which is 



226 PREPAREDNESS 

expected to create a very large and efficient auxiliary 
naval force. All citizens between i8 and 45 years of age 
are eligible to membership, and they are expected to meet 
on Sunday afternoon, " on the water-front," and receive 
instructions in naval science and art at the hands of for- 
mer naval men. The new organization is said to have 
appealed, very promptly and quite as a matter of course, 
to the United States government for " recognition," for 
use of government reservations, and for the occasional 
loan of a warship " for practice." It may be confidently 
anticipated that an appeal for " appropriations " will fol- 
low in due course. 

The Professional Versus the Novice 

In the building up of naval reserves and militia, we 
encounter the same lack of expert confidence in any- 
thing except " the professional " that we find in the army. 
Modern naval warfare is so exclusively the business of 
specialists that the seasoned " sea-dogs " cannot help de- 
spising " raw recruits " or " half-baked land-lubbers." 
The Von Tirpitzes and Fishers of our time stretch out 
both hands and arms for more men, more men ; but they 
insist that it takes years to " lick them into shape." 

Even lay critics, like Mr. Reuterdahl, call our atten- 
tion to the fact that " the wastage in battle is enormous. 
One action might wipe out thousands of highly trained 
specialists : gunpointers, electricians, machinists. These 
places could not be filled at once, and our raw crews 
would meet the fate of Cradock's men, who, being re- 
serves, were only half trained and could not stand up 
with spirit against the matured organization of the 
enemy." 

How many professionals and reservists shall we have ? 
Before the present war, Great Britain had 150,600, with 
58,000 reserves; Germany, 79,200 with 110,000 reserves; 
Japan, 55,700 with 15,000 reserves; the United States, 
66,273 with no reserves. Hence, to overtake our " possi- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 227 

ble enemies " as they were before the war, we should 
have to increase our naval personnel by 320 per cent., 
280 per cent, and 10 per cent, respectively. How expen- 
sive this increase would be may be judged by the fact 
that the expenses of the British navy, per capita of per- 
sonnel before the present war, was $1,080; of the Ger- 
man, $607 ; of the Japanese, $693 ; and of the United 
States, $1,970! Hence, at this rate, we should have to 
pay, — in order to equal the British, German and Japanese 
navy personnel, nearly twice as much per capita as Great 
Britain pays ; more than three times as much as Germany 
paj^s ; and nearly three times as much as Japan pays. 

A Defective Naval Organiaation 

Besides the deficiency in the number and training of 
our naval personnel, of which a host of critics complain, 
our naval organization is condemned as being far behind 
the times. " How for a century the navy has carried 
out its duties without a war staff is a marvel," says Mr. 
Neeser. " The creation of a war staff in England as a 
result of the Beresford Committee of 1909 removed that 
danger for our cousins. About the same time, the Presi- 
dent appointed a commission whose report was strikingly 
similar to that of the Beresford Committee. It revealed 
a condition that astounded even the service. But it ac- 
complished nothing. Congress refused to supply the 
remedy. Admiral Fiske also emphasizes this defect. 
" We have observed [in Europe]," he says, " the forma- 
tion and wonderful work of the general staffs, but have 
provided no general staff or similar agency ourselves." 

The only comfort that has come to our naval men along 
this line of organization is the recent creation of the 
ofifice of chief of naval operations. But this appears to 
be but slight, cold comfort, and they complain that it 
should have been done " fifteen years ago." 

Admiral Fiske, after detailing the great deficiency in 
numbers and training in our naval personnel, sums it 



228 PREPAREDNESS 

all up as follows: "We [naval officers] must make the 
laymen realize that the naval profession has developed 
greatly within the last ten years in Europe, because of 
the imminence of the awful war for which her navies 
strenuously prepared ; while we of the United States, 
feeling secure behind the bulwark of the ocean, have not 
seriously prepared and have therefore dropped behind 
in the march of naval progress and have been, in fact, 
outstripped. We have seen the battle cruiser, the scout, the 
submarine, the airship, the aeroplane and the mine being 
developed by foreign nations into effective instruments 
of war, while their officers and men have been efficiently 
trained in their use and tactics ; but we have not devel- 
oped them into effective instruments of war ourselves, 
and therefore our officers and men have not been effi- 
ciently trained in their use and tactics. We have observed 
the formation of great organizations of highly trained 
reserv^es, but have gotten none ourselves worthy of the 
name." 

G. WHAT IS "adequate" NAVAL PREPAREDNESS? 

When an attempt is made to gather up the threads of 
naval preparedness in our day, they are found to be much 
tangled, to be mutually destructive, and to lead to no 
definite or satisfactory conclusion. The overwater craft 
and the underwater craft are like the proverbial Kil- 
kenny cats that leave nothing of each other ; the various 
types of overwater craft are continually treading each 
other under ; and the various types of underwater craft 
are continually blowing each other up ; while over all the 
aeroplane and airship soar, nullifying the usefulness of 
some and threatening the usefulness of all the rest. 

The war of the war-machines has countless factors, and 
only a few of these may be pointed out here. 

Overwater Craft 

As regards overwater craft, it may be noted, first, that 
any navy is " inadequate," however numerous, large, bel- 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 229 

ligerent and expensive its ships may be, if the enemy has 
a better one. Germany's navy, for example, which is 
said by the experts to be much better than ours, though 
it has cost far less, is cooped up in its harbor, does 
not dare to attack the British fleet and is much less ef- 
fective than fortifications in protecting the German, 
Turkish and Belgian coasts. 

On the other hand. Great Britain's fleet, mighty though 
it is, is unable to deliver an attack on the German or 
Belgian coasts and has failed in its attack on the Darda- 
nelles. True, it has swept the German commerce from 
the sea, and has protected, for the most part, its own. 
How many battleships then shall we have? As many 
as Great Britain? If so we should infallibly repeat Ger- 
many's rivalry, and perhaps Germany's war with Great 
Britain. As many as Germany has? If so, we should 
have very largely to increase the recently proposed pro- 
gramme of lo new battleships, at a cost of $188,000,000, 
for even according to this generous programme, we 
should have in 1921 only as many dreadnoughts, and 
fewer battle cruisers, than Germany had in 1914! 

The " first-line battleships," which have increased 
threefold in size, and more than threefold in cost, within 
a quarter-century, are now trembling on the brink of 
"innocuous desuetude." The pre-dreadnoughts of 15 
years ago have been eclipsed by the dreadnoughts of 10 
years ago. The dreadnoughts of 10 years ago are out- 
classed by the superdreadnoughts of five years ago; and 
the superdreadnoughts of this year will be outclassed 
by those of next. The dreadnoughts of all kinds, in fact, 
are being surpassed in speed and fighting efifectiveness 
by the battle cruisers; and they are in mortal terror of 
the submarine. 

The submarine has also checked a squadron of vic- 
torious battle cruisers in full pursuit of their retreating 
foe ; and this fact, as well as its being a hybrid, — not so 
fast as a scout cruiser, nor so powerful as a battleship, — 



230 PREPAREDNESS 

has already caused the battle cruiser to be condemned by 
many of the experts. Nevertheless, we are planning to 
build six of these before 1921, at a cost of $105,000,000, 
while Germany had 8, Great Britain 10, and Japan 4, in 
1914! 

Our eleven armored cruisers are already antiquated ; 
we have built none since 1905, and our new programme 
provides for no more. 

Our fourteen scout-cruisers are to be increased by 1921 
to 24, according to the new programme, at a cost of $50,- 
000,000 ; but even then we shall have only about one-half 
as many as Germany had, and one-fourth as many as 
Great Britain had, in 1914! Meanwhile, the aeroplane 
has already out-scouted the scout cruiser by about 1,000 
per cent. ! 

The torpedo boats, which were hailed with such ac- 
claim a dozen years ago, are as dead as a door-nail. We 
have not built any since 1900, and the new programme 
provides for no more. 

The destroyer started its career in the destruction of 
torpedo boats, and has heretofore been called a torpedo 
boat destroyer; but now it has become, in name only, a 
destroyer, and in function principally a scout. But as 
a destroyer it is in immediate danger of being antiquated 
by the submarine; and as a scout, it is outclassed by the 
aeroplane. Nevertheless, our new programme proposes 
to add to our navy 50 destroyers at a cost of $68,000,000. 
Even then, in 1921, we should have 30 less than Germany, 
and 112 less than Great Britain, had in 1914! 

Our four coast defense ships are antiquated ; we have 
built none since 1899, and the new programme provides 
for no more. 

As to naval auxiliaries, Great Britain has 5,000 in use. 
According to Admiral Fiske, we have " an inadequate 
merchant marine from which to get auxiliaries." The 
American consul at Cardiff, Wales, reported last March, 
six or seven months after the beginning of the war, that 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 231 

the British had taken over 1,500 merchantmen, aggregat- 
ing 3,500,000 tons, for the purpose of transporting and 
supplying armies in the field. During the Spanish War, — 
a tempest in a tea-pot, — our War Department chartered 
57 ships as transports, at exorbitant prices, and 21 of 
these were procured from foreigners. The Board of In- 
spection of the Navy Department is now making a survey 
of the American merchant marine ; and the Secretary of 
the Treasury advocates subsidizing, if necessary, a trans- 
pacific line to be used in case of military necessity. How 
far we should have to go along this relatively unimpor- 
tant line, — as far as the actual fighting is concerned, — 
may be estimated from the fact that it would require 1,000 
ships to transport 350,000 soldiers and their equipment 
across the ocean. Count Okuma estimates that 2,000,000 
tons of shipping is requisite for the transportation of 
400,000 soldiers. Japan's entire commercial fleet aggre- 
gates 1,000,000 tons. How many available tons should 
we have, in case of war, for transports, foodships, am- 
munition ships, hospital ships, repair ships, colliers, oil 
ships, fire fighters, floating docks, etc., etc.? The new 
programme provides for six of these ships at a cost of 
about $10,000,000! 

Underwater Craft 

Turning to " adequate " preparedness under the water, 
we find a similar unknown and constantly changing set 
of factors for the solution of the problem. 

The submarine has increased in size from 300 tons to 
900 tons' displacement; in radius, from 1,000 to 6,000 
miles; in speed, from 10 to 22 knots, above water, and 
from 5 to 1 1 knots, under the surface ; and in armament, 
from one torpedo and no guns, to 8 torpedoes and 3-inch 
and 6-inch guns. It is used for the defense of seacoasts, 
harbors, battleships and for attacks upon merchantmen, 
harbors, transports and battleships. It can even dive 
under submarine mines, in its attacks upon its prey. So 



232 PREPAREDNESS 

revolutionary has it already become, — within a mere 
span of time, — that it has effected a stalemate in warfare 
on the sea as complete as is the warfare in the trenches, 
and has challenged the mastery of the sea by even the 
proudest fleet that plows the waves. 

We are planning to increase our number of varied but 
inefficient submarines by adding, within the next five 
years, 15 fleet and 85 coast submarines, at a cost of about 
$78,000,000. We should even then lag behind what 
Great Britain and Germany have now. 

Submarine mines, anchored and floating; wireless tor- 
pedoes, fired from crewless boats and crewless aeroplanes, 
from distant points on shore or on the ocean : these are 
two more of the many known and secret devices used in 
our day for the destruction of battleships, and the nullifi- 
cation or complete transformation of all the old familiar 
means of attack and defense. While to counteract these, 
or to revolutionize them in their turn, aeroplanes, "jitney 
submarines," motor-boats, and a host of nets and traps, 
are being launched upon the market and the sea. 

How many of these shall we invest in, to make our 
armaments really "adequate"? How much equipment 
of this kind do we require? The new programme pro- 
vides $480,000 " for torpedo defense nets." How far 
would this go towards really "adequate" armament? 
Can any man say what is really adequate armament? 
Within a year after the beginning of the present war, 
the British Admiralty received more than 32,000 " new 
ideas," and is working on some of these which, it is freely 
predicted, will make the submarine of to-day as innocuous 
as a goldfish, and a superdreadnought as helpless as a 
jellyfish. The rapid trend of naval science appears to be 
away from size and towards the maximum of force in 
the minimum of space. Thus is recalled the old-fash- 
ioned redtictio ad absurdum: 

As naturalists observe, a flea 

Has smaller fleas that on him prey ; 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 233 

And these have smaller still to bite 'em ; 
And so proceed, ad infinitum. 

Speed; Guns, Projectiles, Explosives ; Armor 

For both overwater and underwater craft, a constant 
revolution is in progress in the development of new kinds 
of fuel and engines. Speed, speed, SPEED, is the inces- 
sant demand ; and scientists of many kinds are doing their 
marvellous best to satisfy this demand for land vehicles, 
watercraft, submarines and aeroplanes. Victory goes to 
the fastest and the hardest hitter. Hence, vying with the 
speed-makers are the manufacturers of guns, projectiles 
and explosives ; and these in turn are breathlessly pur- 
sued by the makers of armor. 

Guns have grown in range from less than one-half mile 
to more than eleven miles, and in size from 7-inch to 16- 
inch, which last are now " the heaviest ever " ; their ma- 
terial, too, is constantly changing. " Krupp " is a magic 
word, and every nation has had its attack of this kind of 
croup; but the President of the Bethlehem Steel Co. re- 
cently declared that the " Krupp naval gun is the poorest 
in the world, because battleships have passed beyond the 
antiquated crucible steel gun." Again, the aeroplane, 
as the guide of the gunner, and the submarine, have pulled 
in opposite directions ; the former urges on the increasing 
size and range of guns, while the latter demands smaller 
and quicker-firing ones. Our New York and Pennsyl- 
vania battleships will carry 14-inch guns ; the next class, 
16-inch guns ; but these are criticised for various reasons, 
and the class for next year, it is insisted, must return to 
14-inch guns. Which shall it be, great guns or small; 
how great and how many? 

Projectiles, too, have grown from shot to shells, and 
shells from 100 pounds to 850 pounds in explosive charge, 
A motley crew of ites and ates have sprung up in labora- 
tories to fill these shells with explosives that will make 
them " irresistible " ; and gases are fast replacing shot 
and shell on battlefield and intrenchment. 



234 PREPAREDNESS 

To meet this challenge of shell and gas, the hulls of 
battleships have been made " impenetrable " by sheath- 
ing them in armor, which has radically changed its sub- 
stance at least three times, and three times has increased 
in thickness from 4J/2 to 14 inches or more; while the 
men who fight on shipboard or in trench equip themselves 
with helmets, breast-plates and masks. And now that 
scientists and inventive wizards have been mobilized in 
all the military laboratories of the world, we may expect 
to see perfected some device for utilizing such forces as 
" atomic energy," which will wage war to extermination, 
and bring peace on earth by making it a desert. 

What Revolution Will This War Create? 

What revolution in naval warfare this present war may 
accomplish, no scientist or romancer is bold enough to 
prophesy. 

The Crimean War revolutionized naval warfare by 
producing iron-clad and breech-loading guns with rifled 
bores. The American Civil War produced the epoch- 
making revolving turrets. The Russo-Japanese War 
ushered in another revolution by creating the dread- 
nought, 12-inch guns, and a firing range of 12,000 yards. 
The present war has already given us the submarine, the 
submarine battleship, and the aeroplane as great fighting 
machines. Fifteen years ago, a rear admiral, the lead- 
ing member of the Board of Construction of the United 
States Navy, brushed aside the advocacy of submarines 
and airships with the unanswerable argument that 
" swimming was intended for fishes and flying for birds, 
but neither for men." Within this short space of time, 
men have learned both to swim and to fly so fast and to 
fight so fiercely under water and over land, that the fish- 
men and the bird-men give fair promise of doing away 
first with the warriors on the surface of sea and land, 
and then with each other. In this Twentieth Century 
has been literally realized the seemingly impossible taunt 



PREPAREDNESS ON AND UNDER SEA 235 

which the Scythian chieftain hurled at the Persian king, 
2,300 years ago : " Unless, O Persians, ye become birds 
and fly into the air, or become mice and hide yourselves 
beneath the earth, or become frogs and leap into the 
lakes, ye shall never return home again, but shall die 
by these arrows." Thus, Twentieth Century science has 
enabled belligerent man to transform himself into birds, 
mice and frogs, as well as into the shark of the sea and 
the tiger of the jungle. Which and how many of these 
noble brutes shall we Americans become, in our frantic 
efforts to " prepare " ? 



VIII 
PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 

THE military experts who declare that the real war- 
fare of the future is to be, not on and under the 
land, but on and under the sea, are rivalled by 
other experts who declare that the real warfare of the 
future is to be, not on and under the sea, but in and from 
the air. The marvellous inventions of the past ten years 
have made Darius Green's flying-machine no longer a 
laughing-stock, and have enabled the belligerents in the 
present war to fulfill literally Tennyson's poetic prophecy 
of " the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue." 
For example, in an aerial battle in Alsace, twenty aero- 
planes engaged ; rifles, machine-guns and bombs were 
the weapons; the ships, or planes, maneuvred for posi- 
tion, dashed in and rammed each other; and finally, one 
side was defeated, and retreat and pursuit ensued. 

CAPTIVE BALLOONS 

For centuries, it was deemed a great scientific triumph 
for men to ascend in lighter-than-air balloons, even 
though they were blown hither and thither as the winds 
listed. Our Twentieth Century has developed, not only 
a dirigible balloon, but a heavier-than-air machine. And 
yet even the despised balloon has played an unsuspected 
role in the present war. Captive balloons are to be seen 
at many points on the line of battle, equipped with photo- 
graphic and signalling apparatus, and acting as the eyes 
of the artillery. Especially on battlefields where both 
guns and men are invisible, the captive balloon has proved 
of vast importance in detecting and reporting accurately 
the disposition and strength of " the enemy." Slow and 
sure, as compared with the aviator, the stationary bal- 

236 



PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 237 

loon has earned in military service its continuance even 
amidst dirigibles and aeroplanes. 

DIRIGIBLE BALLOONS, OR AIRSHIPS 

The dirigible balloons, or airships proper, like those of 
the Zeppelin, Parseval (or Parzival), Spiess, or La 
Patrie types, seem not so v^onderful as the heavier-than- 
air aeroplanes ; and yet they are marvellous in their way, 
and bear an incalculable promise of military efficiency. 
Acting on the principle that if might is right, dynamite is 
more right, the airship drops bombs on v^arship, camp 
or fortress. It participates prominently in the campaign 
of " frightfulness," v^^hich is designed to distract the 
enemy's thoughts, prevent him from concentrating all 
his energies and resources on ofifensive warfare and bring 
pressure from his own terrified people at home to demand 
a cessation of the war. 

Equipped with lOO-horse power, six-cylinder engines, 
or 510 horse-power in all; supplied with fuel for twenty- 
four hours at top speed, or for 96 hours at normal speed ; 
maintaining a speed of sixty miles an hour; carrying 
a load of seven to ten tons and a gondola for militant 
air-men and for a shell-firing anti-aircraft gun ; and 
furnished forth with death-dealing bombs ; such is the 
military airship proper of our time. Developed from the 
original cigar-shape into a fish-like form, and painted a 
leaden gray, or an " invisible green," they fly, like verita- 
ble messengers of death, in the darkness of the night, 
when on their raids. These raids have proven that Eng- 
land's sea-girt, navy-encircled, fortified coasts and cities 
are not immune from an aerial fleet. Dirigibles have 
disputed also England's mastery of the ocean, having 
overhauled and stopped at least one ship at sea. 

Another novel use made of the dirigible airship is the 
transportation of machinery from Austria-Hungary to 
Turkey, by which shells were to be manufactured for the 
defense of the Dardanelles. A dozen of the largest Zep- 



238 PREPAREDNESS 

pelins, each carr}dng from three to four tons of machin- 
ery and making two or three trips of 280 miles each, 
across Bulgaria, are said to have performed this feat 
of aerial transportation. 

DEFENSES AGAINST DIRIGIBLES 

The advent of these " dreadnoughts of the air " has 
caused the invention of giant search-lights and of re- 
versed megaphones, and microphone listening-stations, 
for their discovery; of various types of guns, with ex- 
ceptionally wide angles, or mounted on lofty towers for 
their destruction ; and especially of " aerial torpedo- 
boats " for their annihilation. This novel torpedo-boat 
is small in size, though carrying large torpedoes or bombs, 
and dispenses with an aviator's presence, since it is me- 
chanically adjusted before it is launched in the air. Thus, 
like " a torpedo with a brain," it flies and guides itself 
by means of a gyroscopic stabilizer, until the moment is 
reached for it to fire its torpedo or drop its bomb. The 
torpedo or bomb is released by a time-clock arrangement, 
and has been fired or dropped accurately as far distant as 
twenty-five miles from the torpedo-boat's starting point. 
The cost of these air-boats, complete, is about $10,000, 
and many hundreds of them have been built and used 
against Zeppelins and for other purposes. A numerous 
fleet is reported to be now building for an attack upon 
the Turkish forts in the Dardanelles. 

Another defense called forth by the dirigible airship 
is a small hydrogen balloon, which lifts a high explosive 
and inflammable fuse. When Zeppelins are sighted, these 
balloons, attached to fine wires two miles long, are re- 
leased and, shooting up above the Zeppelin, cause a con- 
tact with the wire and balloon and explode the charge. 

These various devices have caused Zeppelins, which, 
before the war, had a radius of 1,000 miles and carried 
several tons of bombs at a height of 2,000 feet, to shorten 
their radius and to fly at a height of 7,000 feet, thus pre- 



PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 239 

venting them from carrying, on their long raids, more 
than one ton of bombs. 

But in spite of air-guns and other devices for coping 
with the airship, the cities of Europe are Hving under a 
reign of mental terror and of physical darkness at night ; 
and their inhabitants are resorting to bomb-proof cellars, 
or to the use of respirators for the nullification of as- 
phyxiating gases diffused from airship bombs. 

AEROPLANES 

Spectacular as is the airship, the aeroplane is the favor- 
ite child of this century. Three types of these have been 
developed with success, namely, the monoplane, the bi- 
plane and the triplane. The monoplane, with but one 
supporting plane, has become famous because of the mili- 
tary exploits of the German taubes. Far from being 
doves of peace, these doves flock with the Hohenzollern 
eagles of various kinds and have made many a destruc- 
tive raid into France, as far as and beyond Paris. 

Biplanes, with two supporting planes, one above the 
other, and triplanes, with three supporting planes, have 
been added to the aerial navies, especially of France, and 
have enabled those navies to more than duplicate in the 
air the biremes and triremes of the water-navies of an- 
cient Greece and Rome. 

When the present war began, aeroplanes were used 
chiefly for scouting purposes, and they are still indispen- 
sable for those purposes ; but one year ago, they were 
small and light-armed, and were not very formidable as 
fighting machines. Equipped with only a 27 horse-power 
motor, and able to carry only a four hours' supply of 
gasoline as fuel, their radius of action was little more 
than 200 miles. 

Today, huge biplanes, or " superplanes," or " dread- 
nought war-planes," are being built and used, equipped 
with twin motors of 160 to 200 horse-power each, carry- 
ing a fuel supply for nearly twenty hours, with a rate of 



240 PREPAREDNESS 

speed of nearly seventy-five miles an hour, and a radius 
of action of nearly 1,500 miles. If fuel alone were car- 
ried in these biplanes, they could cover the distance of 
1,900 miles across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to 
Ireland ; but an important part of their cargo is a ton of 
dynamite or other explosive, which is used for destroy- 
ing bridges, intrenchments, fortifications, railroads and 
other lines of communication. Admiral Fiske testified 
before a Committee of Congress last winter that a hostile 
fleet need approach to within only 500 or 600 miles from 
our coast in order to launch a successful aeroplane ex- 
pedition against us for the purpose of dropping bombs on 
our cities. 

In Germany, England, Russia and Italy many huge 
war-planes are under construction or already launched, 
and, under the names of Kolossals, Ilja Mouramets, De- 
stroyers, Acrohusses, etc., are beginning to play a fearful 
role of destruction in the great war. 

Already, the small aeroplanes have accomplished much 
in a military way besides their principal service of scout- 
ing. As scouts, they have headed oiT many an airship 
attack upon London and Paris, and were instrumental in 
preventing Von Kluck's army from being attacked by a 
flanking force, and in causing its retreat from Paris. Be- 
sides such services, they have fought each other, hav- 
ing as many as 40 battles in 18 days ; they have dropped 
explosives weighing from 300 to 400 pounds on the Zep- 
pelin base at Friedrichshaven, the hangar at Evere, Bel- 
gium, the submarine bases at Zeebrugge and Antwerp, 
the Krupp works at Diisseldorf, the fortifications of 
Goritz, the asphyxiating gas base at Dornach, the railroad 
station and electric power house at Miihlheim and on 
towns of varied importance like Cologne, Cuxhaven and 
Karlsruhe, in Germany, Bari in Italy and towns and cities 
in England and France, including London and Paris. A 
French aviator dropped a bomb on the largest coal 
depot on the Rhine, located at Strassburg, and caused the 



PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 241 

destruction of 4,000 tons of coal and endangered 20,000 
more tons and the city of Strassburg itself. Another set 
fire to a powder magazine in Southern Baden ; a squad- 
ron of thirty-five shelled a large munition depot near 
Calonne; an Austrian flier destroyed by bombs a squad- 
ron of three Russian aeroplanes ; another flew above the 
mountain ramparts of Montenegro and caused havoc in 
one of its supposedly inaccessible towns ; and a veritable 
Heet of 62 French aeroplanes bombarded a munitions 
plant at Saarlouis in Rhenish Prussia, while another, of 84 
planes, bombarded German intrenchments. Two French 
and two English aeroplanes attacked and destroyed a 
Zeppelin ; Russian aeroplanes have guarded the coasts 
of the Black Sea; German aeroplanes have acted as eyes 
of the submarines and have guided them in their attacks 
on merchantmen, destroyers and cruisers ; the warship 
fleets of the warring nations are protected by them from 
hourly danger of attack from submarines and floating 
mines ; aeroplanes have guarded and guided the naval at- 
tacks in the Dardanelles, and convoyed troops across the 
English Channel ; and, to cap the climax of seeming ro- 
mance, a British aviator bombarded and sunk a sub- 
marine moored in the mole at Zeebrugge. A short ad- 
vance over this will enable an airman to dive like a fish- 
hawk beneath the surface of the sea and, clutching a 
submarine in his talons, fly away with it to his eyrie ! 

So impressive has been the work of aeroplanes that it 
is seriously proposed to establish in Great Britain a Min- 
istry of Aviation, to construct thousands of aeroplanes 
and with them to destroy the Krupp works at Essen, 
batter down the bridges over the Meuse and the Rhine, 
and thus prevent the daily transit of 2,160 trains laden 
with food, ammunition and reenforcements for the Ger- 
man armies in the West. 

So efficient is the aeroplane of today in the destruc- 
tion of defenses, the demoralization of armies in the 
field, and the paralysis of lines of communication, as well 



242 PREPAREDNESS 

as in scouting, that military experts declare that no army 
or fleet, no matter how strong and completely equipped 
it may be, can dare to move unless it has secured com- 
mand of the air. As one of these experts puts it : " Every 
military and naval authority in Europe now recognizes 
that a navy without aerial eyes is as helpless as a sub- 
marine without a periscope ; an army without aerial 
scouts can be corraled and slaughtered like a herd of 
sheep ; a harbor or naval station is at the mercy of every 
puny submarine and cruiser." 

With such views prevalent in Europe, the statement 
of Orville Wright is credible that as early in the war 
as November, 1914, the British were turning out planes 
at the rate of sixty per week, and that by May, 191 5, 
they had constructed new planes to the number of 1,560. 
Both France and Germany have pushed on aeroplane con- 
struction with feverish rapidity. How rapid it was in 
Germany before the war may be estimated by the fact 
that constructors increased them from 20, in 1912, to 50, 
in 1913. American manufacturers are adding their hun- 
dreds of planes to the belligerents' large stock. For ex- 
ample, on a single trip from New York to Europe, the 
Baltic carried as part of its cargo 197 aeroplanes, valued 
at $600,000. Orders for aeroplanes to the value of $15,- 
000,000 had been placed in the United States by the 
Allies before the first six months of the war had passed, 
and two more orders, each for 1,000 planes, could not be 
placed on account of lack of facilities for manufacturing. 
German manufacturers of aeroplanes have also revolu- 
tionized their equipments and methods, and have been 
constructing more than 100 planes per week, with greatly 
increased motor power and with " pusher " instead of 
" tractor " propellers. 

AERIAL TORPEDO-BOATS 

Already an aerial torpedo-boat has been patented, 
which will be to the airship what the submarine is to 



PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 243 

the superdreadnought. This boat, equipped with a 
Whitehead torpedo having a range of 10,000 yards, is 
designed to swoop down at a distance of some five miles 
from a fleet of warships and, dropping a torpedo in the 
water, set its machinery in motion and send it at a speed 
of more than forty knots an hour towards the doomed 
ship. Such boats can be used either in open waters or 
in land-locked harbors (like that at Santiago de Cuba), 
and may yet be able to launch torpedoes in the air against 
the superdreadnoughts of the firmaments ! 

HYDROAEROPLANES 

There are authentic instances in history where cavalry 
and infantry have fought sea-battles, and ships have bat- 
tled on the land. But these episodes have been eclipsed 
by the hydroaeroplane of our time. This amphibious 
machine is well called the connecting link between the 
army, the navy and the air-fleet. It is capable of alight- 
ing upon, traveling on, and rising from, the water, and 
of flying over land and sea. There are ordinary hydro- 
aeroplanes, for use over land and on small bodies of 
water; and sea-planes, especially designed for use at 
sea. The former are designed to give eyes to the army, 
and the latter to give wings to the navy. The sea-planes 
can put out from the shore, or be launched from a ship, 
or rise from the water. Their uses are varied and im- 
portant, — so important that no warship is considered 
complete unless it carries and uses them as regularly 
and normally as it carries and uses small boats. They 
are three times as fast as cruisers, and, equipped with 
trained observers and wireless apparatus, they are 
launched from a ship's side and sent on scouting expedi- 
tions of a hundred miles, communicating their discoveries 
by means of wireless over a radius of fifty miles from their 
base. As " kingfishers of the submarine," while they are 
soaring at an altitude of 300 to 500 feet above the water, 
they can detect a submarine boat or mine, even when 



244» PREPAREDNESS 

these are submerged to the depth of from 150 to 200 feet. 
Then, far outracing the submarine, they can report its 
presence to warships and enable them to escape or to 
destroyers and enable them to pursue it. Mounting high 
in the air from a ship's side, the hydroaeroplane directs 
the firing of the gun ; both when the mast-head spotters 
cannot secure or have lost the range, because of distance, 
and when indirect firing is necessary, as at the Darda- 
nelles. It reports to landing parties the nature and loca- 
tion of defenses, and aids in the attack by shelling, from 
the air, defenses, troops, depots and transports. A fleet 
of them have even set forth from hangar-ships at sea 
to attack forts and naval bases. Independently or to- 
gether, they sink submarines, merchant-vessels and trans- 
ports, and greatly harass even men-of-war. 

For coast-defense purposes, the aeroplane of all kinds 
is widely used. It launches forth into the air from shore, 
mounts high above the land, or flies far out over the sea ; 
and then, returning at rapid speed to base, or utilizing its 
wireless outfit, it reports the presence of Vv^arships hidden 
below the horizon from observers on even the highest 
points on shore. By means of signals, such as the drop- 
ping of smoke-bombs, it can direct the fire of shore bat- 
teries and forts upon warships long distances at sea. 

THE OBSOLESCENCE OF AIRCRAFT 

Meanwhile, rapid as has been the development of avia- 
tion, the obsolescence of aircraft has been even more 
rapid ; it has far exceeded the rate of obsolescence of the 
dreadnought, and will doubtless continue at the same 
rapid rate for some time in the future, and especially until 
the end of the present war. Frederick A. Talbot, the dis- 
tinguished aeronaut of Great Britain, declares : " The 
first year of the war has completely revolutionized the 
design, equipment and methods of operating the aero- 
plane. Will the second twelve months' campaigning bring 
about any further developments equally startling? The 



PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 245 

air-machine is in the melting-pot. During the short span 
of a single year, the aerial fleets of the protagonists have 
been completely remodeled and rebuilt; but it is safe 
to assert that the further lessons which remain to be 
learned will exercise just as far-reaching influence and 
contribute to the production of still more wonderful war- 
ships of the air." 

There is another factor of obsolescence which should 
receive some consideration, namely, the changing rules 
of the game. What kind of aerial warfare in the future 
will be permissible to civilized nations? Will they con- 
tent themselves with the destruction of cities by means 
of bombs or barrels of inflammable oils, hurled from air- 
ships ? Or will they transfer the " gas warfare " of the 
trenches to the heavens, and hurl down projectiles filled 
with asphyxiating gases to exterminate the inhabitants? 
The decision would make a difference in the type of 
" adequate " aircraft. It might therefore be wise to 
wait until the new rules of the game have been issued, 
so as to avoid putting our money on the wrong horse, — 
or bird. 

AERIAL PERSONNEL 

As to the problem of training a sufficient number of 
aeronauts for such a vast fleet of airships, Mr. Orville 
Wright admits that it is, even for only 2,000 machines, 
" a very serious problem. There should be," he says, 
" at least three men for each machine ; and of course, at 
first, the dearth of machines would render the training 
process very slow. The small number of available offi- 
cers, also, must be considered." The number of aviators 
in our army and navy at present is less than 100, instead 
of Mr. Wright's desired number of at least 6,000. 

To meet this demand, the government is being urged 
by the aero clubs to establish aviation schools, — " on the 
Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts " ; — and meanwhile, the 
Aero Club of America is preparing to open an " aviation 



246 PREPAREDNESS 

center " at Sheepshead Bay, where sportsmen and busi- 
ness men are to be trained in the airman's craft. Con- 
crete hangars, provided with steam heat, electric Hght 
and all modern conveniences for flying during both win- 
ter and summer, are to be opened in the Spring of 1916, 
and daily training will be given, supplemented by weekly 
meets. 

The Aero Club of America has also turned its atten- 
tion to the States and large cities, and is collecting a fund 
of $500,000 for the purchase of aeroplanes to be used by 
the National Guards and the Naval Militia. The Aero 
Club of Pennsylvania is raising a fund of $50,000 for 
" the complete aerialization " of Pennsylvania, New Jer- 
sey and Delaware. Aeronauts are to police this aeronau- 
tical zone, with the aiJ of wireless telegraphy, and to re- 
port the passage of all aircraft as well as the approach 
of " the enemy " on the ocean. Its fleet of aeroplanes 
and hydroaeroplanes is to form " the first line of aerial 
defense" in time of war; and in time of peace it is to 
afiford opportunity for instruction in aeronautics for mi- 
litiamen, marines and civilians. The appeal issued by 
the Aero Club to the public for contributions to this fund, 
says : " Contributions are expected from all persons 
who realize the necessity for adequate defenses for this 
country. The huge air-fleets of France and Germany 
were made possible when, in 1912-13, the French and 
German people, through popular subscription, raised re- 
spectively $1,222,969 and $1,808,606." Among others 
responding to this appeal, is a lady of Providence, Rhode 
Island, who emphasizes her trust in aeroplanes by con- 
tributing $7,500 for the purchase of one. The Philadel- 

•^phia and other newspapers welcomed this plea in vocifer- 
ous editorials, and confidently predicted that " aerial pre- 
paredness " is going to be as vital an element in national 
defense as are military and naval preparedness on land 

N^and sea." The National Guard of Pennsylvania has looked 
askance at the project; but the Navy Department has 



PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 247 

provided ground at League Island for its aviation center, 
and has welcomed the assistance of the amateur aero- 
nautical experts in training the navy-yard men in the use 
of aircraft. The Navy Department has also begun the 
policy of providing the Naval Reserves of the States with 
aeroplanes for the instruction of aeronauts, two of these 
having already been sent to the battalion in Camden, New 
Jersey, and an aviation station and armory to train aero- 
nauts having been arranged for in St. Louis. 

WHAT IS ADEQUATE AERIAL PREPAREDNESS? 

Such are some of the military uses of the aircraft of 
our time. Many of the prepareders of America, taking 
note of these, insist that " mastery of the air " is the best, 
perhaps the only effective, preparation available for us. 
They urge that, as England is the Queen of the sea, and 
Germany the King of the land, now is the time for the 
American Eagle to become in fact the Birdmen's King. 

Our Unpreparedness \ 

What, then, is " adequate preparedness " along this ^ 
line? How much of it have we today? Numerous ex- 
perts assure us that we are absolutely unprepared. For 
example, Mr. Orville Wright declares : " It would be 
folly for the United States to engage in war today with 
any of the European powers, owing to our utter unpre- 
paredness in the line of aeronautical equipment. Two 
years would be required for this country to acquire the 
aeroplanes needed to assure protection, even in time of 
peace. " Another aerial expert, the president of an aero 
club, declares : " The American navy has no aeroplane 
scouts worthy of the name. In case of war, our fleets, 
as they are now constituted, w^ould be sent to face cer- 
tain destruction at the hands of fleets supplied with aero- 
plane spotters. On land, the story would be the same ; 
masses of troops could be concentrated to be hurled 
against our lines, while we remained utterly in ignorance 



248 PREPAREDNESS 

that an attack was to be made." Senator Lodge declares 
that we are wofully deficient in aircraft, and points to 
the fact that we have no dirigibles and only twenty-five 
aeroplanes, — thirteen for the army, only nine of which 
are even claimed to be first-class, — and twelve for the 
navy, eleven of which, according to an aviator recently 
returned from Europe, are altogether unfit for use. 

Mr. Henry Reuterdahl asserts: "The United States 
Navy has fourteen aeroplanes for scouting. Should war 
break out to-morrow, none of the machines would be 
capable of continuous military duty; there would not be 
one which could accompany the fleet to detect submarines 
or mine-fields. Recently, one wabbled to earth and killed 
the aviator. The country where the aeroplane was born 
is the twentieth power in aeronautics." 

In contrast with us, France had, at the beginning of 
this present war, 22 dirigibles and 1,400 aeroplanes ; Ger- 
many, 40 dirigibles and 1,000 aeroplanes; Russia, 16 
dirigibles and 800 aeroplanes ; Great Britain, 9 dirigibles 
and 400 aeroplanes ; Belgium, 2 dirigibles and 100 aero- 
planes ; Serbia, 60 aeroplanes. During the war, the Eu- 
ropean nations have enormously increased their supply of 
aeroplanes. Great Britain, France and Germany each 
being now credited with 10,000! On the Franco-Belgian 
battle-line, there are said to be 1,500 French, and 1,000 
British aeroplanes, and still the commanding generals are 
clamoring for more. The productive capacity of France 
and England has been increased to 1,000 aeroplanes per 
week; while in the United States, all our public and 
\ private facilities can turn out only 300 to 400 per week. 

Coast Defense 

When we compare our present preparedness along this 
line with our alleged needs, the contrast is quite as strik- 
ing. In addition to the cloud of aeroplanes, as numerous 
as the locusts in Egypt, that is demanded for army and 
navy scouting purposes, our coast-line, we are told, must 



PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 249 

be guarded primarily by flying-machines. " These are 
dark days for the old order of things," an aviation ex- 
pert declares, " and there are persons who hold in greater 
likelihood the landing of troops from transports at out- 
of-the-way places upon our coasts than an attack by a 
battle-fleet upon the defenses of our seaports. Our coast- 
line, bounding two oceans, cannot be fortified in the strict 
sense, nor do fortifications play the part they once did. 
These long stretches of seacoast and the line of the 
Panama Canal, — so tender a spot that no one in the 
service willingly talks about it, — must be protected by a 
combination of mobile land forces and sea power. To 
this combination, the aeroplane brings the third indis- 
pensable element ; it gives land and sea forces their high- 
est efficiency, and permits them to cooperate." In the 
light of this testimony, it is proposed to establish along- 
shore radio-receiving stations of wireless telegraphy, lOO 
miles apart, each equipped with one or more aeroplanes, 
these also fitted with wireless apparatus. This plan of 
coast-patrol is endorsed by a fellow-expert as " a tragi- 
cally important link between the silent, newsless sea and 
our apprehensive forces ashore." With 21,000 miles of 
coasts to protect, this plan would require 210 stations, 
and from 210 to an indefinite number of aeroplanes. 

But this is far from being the whole story. The forti- 
fications along our coasts without aeroplanes are declared 
to have become practically useless, for the reason that 
" whether afloat or ashore, a gun that is aerially eyeless 
is blind in the modern sense of the word. With its rap- 
idly increasing bore and heightening angle of elevation, 
the growing gun is fast passing in range beyond the ability 
of the observer aground to spot its shots." Hence aero- 
planes are demanded so that the necessary miles of range 
may be added to the gunner's vision. 

As aids to the army, to the navy, and to the coast forti- 
fications, and for direct attack or defense, an indefinite 
and innumerable fleet of airships is demanded, in order 



250 PREPAREDNESS 

to compete with the other nations and to supply ourselves 
with " adequate defense." 

Our Programme for Dirigibles 

What are we doing to supply this demand ? Well, the 
Navy Department saved last year, by economical admin- 
istration, the sum of $12,000,000, which it plans to expend 
in the building of an aviation station at Pensacola, Flor- 
ida, and the purchase of high-class aeroplanes. Besides 
this, Congress appropriated at its last session, $1,000,000 
for the use of the navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, and 
$300,000 for the use of the same bureau in the army. 
This sum was regarded as but " a drop in the bucket," 
but the Navy Department determined to " make a be- 
ginning " by asking for bids on two dirigibles. These 
dirigibles, having received from aeroplane scouts infor- 
mation as to the approach of submarines or mines, are 
designed to fly forth and drop 50-pound bombs, fitted 
with fuses to explode on contact with the submarines, 
or after sinking to a certain depth. It is not hoped, of 
course, to become " adequately prepared " by means of 
these two dirigibles ; for they are not to be of the rigid 
type which alone is now deemed efficient, and, according 
to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, they are to be 
" of the smallest size that will be serviceable for training 
and experiment, to develop officers and men for this serv- 
ice and obtain the necessary experience to produce a large 
dirigible fleet." They are, in fact, to be only " baby Zep- 
pelins," and since their purchase is designed, according 
to the Assistant Secretary, to encourage the development 
of the manufacture of dirigibles in this country, it may 
be regarded as another and a novel form of " protection 
to infant industry." How baby-like they will be can be 
guessed from their dimensions of 175 feet in length, 50 
feet in height, and 35 feet in width, as compared with a 
Zeppelin's dimensions of three times that size. Like 
President Jeflferson's " warships," which were to be run 



PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 251 

out of the water on wheels and kept tinder sheds when 
not in use, these " war-planes " are to be taken apart 
and their parts conveyed on naval transports or even on 
a battleship. 

In addition to providing for the two dirigibles, the Navy 
Department has contracted for six hydroaeroplanes, of 
the biplane type, each to carry two persons, guns, ammu- 
nition, wireless outfit and a certain amount of armor pro- 
tection, and to have a speed of from 50 to 80 miles an 
hour. The bids on these ran from $6,600 to $18,000 for 
each machine. 

The building of new aeroplanes has been deferred 
pending the development of a motor entirely satisfactory 
to the government. 

Scientific Preparation 

A portion of the congressional appropriation of last 
year, namely, $5,000, is to be devoted to the expenses of 
a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which 
is to consist of not more than twelve scientists, and is 
" to supervise and direct the scientific study of the prob- 
lems of flight with a view to their practical solution." 
To aid this Committee and the new Advisory Committee 
of the Navy, a new society, called the American Society 
of Aeronautic Engineers, has been organized, with 200 
charter members. The members are either aeronautic 
engineers or flying experts, and forty of them are licensed 
pilots and aviators. Four directors of this society are 
appointed by the Navy Department and the War Depart- 
ment, and one each by the Post Office Department, the 
Smithsonian Institution, the Weather Bureau, the Bu- 
reau of Standards, the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology and the University of Michigan, — the last two in- 
stitutions having introduced into their curriculum a 
course on aeronautics. 



252 PREPAREDNESS 

Our Needs 

Reviewing the demand for " preparedness " along the 
line of aviation, it is seen that it includes a vast and in- 
definite increase, even in time of peace, in the number and 
size of dirigibles, aeroplanes and hydroaeroplanes, for 
the army, for the navy (and for each of its capital ships), 
for the coast fortifications, for the frontier patrol and 
for the Panama Canal and the Island possessions in the 
Atlantic and Pacific ; a chain of aircraft bases and wire- 
less outfits at distances of loo miles on both oceans and 
the Gulf ; an auxiliary organization of hangar ships ; the 
training and equipment of the State militia and Naval 
militia for aeronautical service ; scores of special corps 
of trained, professional experts, and a reserve of trained 
pilots; the establishment by the Post Office Department 
of 2,000 aerial routes, so that it may create a corps of 
civil aviators who could be recruited for military pur- 
poses in time of war ; the registration of all amateur and 
professional aviators in private life, so that they may be 
speedily corraled and mobilized in time of war; the de- 
velopment of manufactures that can produce the right 
kind and adequate number of motors ; the establishment 
of many air-bases and innumerable hangars ; and the de- 
velopment, manufacture and purchase of aeroguns and 
a whole arsenal of new weapons of attack and de- 
fense. 

As to the number of aeroplanes needed, Mr. Orville 
Wright testifies : " A conservative estimate of the num- 
ber of machines needed by the navy alone, based on in- 
formation given by naval officers, places the figures some- 
where around 1,000. Some of the best informed officers 
have told me that 1,300 would be required. Allowing 
that the na\^ needs the higlier figure, and by estimating 
the requirements of the army at 700, the United States 
should have, to insure reasonable protection in time of 
peace, 2,000 machines. These would suffice as a guar- 



PREPAREDNESS IN AND FROM THE AIR 253 

antee of safety, in case of sudden war, while we brought 
our equipment up to the proportions demanded by the 
occasion." 

" The occasion " hinted at by Mr. Wright and all other 
prepareders is, and must remain of course, delightfully 
indefinite. But when it is recalled that the average " life " 
of aeroplanes in the present war is about seven hours of 
actual Hying, the imagination may perhaps estimate by 
the use of very large figures how many aeroplanes would 
be synonymous with genuine preparedness for a war 
with a first-class power at some time in the indefinite 
future. The imagination may be aided in this estimate, 
also, by the alleged fact that France has at present as 
many soldiers in the air as we have on the ground ! 

Comparing the programme of adequate preparedness 
in and from the air with our present equipment, our pres- 
ent rate of progress, the equipment of our " possible 
enemies," and our means of attaining the goal, it is plain 
to every man of solid understanding, with his feet on 
the ground and his thoughts in the heavens, that it would 
be a long, long way for us to go to the Tipperary of com- 
plete aerial defense. As to the cost of carrying out this 
programme, a faint idea of it may be gained by reflecting 
upon the single item of one aeroplane, which as it is made 
today costs about $10,000, has a " life " in war-time of 
seven hours, and is liable to become as useful as a last 
year's bird's-nest, within a small fraction of a year, by 
the development of some super-aircraft. The favorite 
statement of prepareders who demand peace or defense 
at any price that this cost only equals the expense of a 
single shot from a big gun, or is only one-fifteen-hun- 
dredth of the cost of a superdreadnought, is not con- 
vincing or reassuring; for a man who is required to pay 
$1,500 for a suit of clothes is not consoled by being 
charged $1.00 apiece for hat-bands and obliged to pur- 
chase ten or fifteen thousand of them. 



IX 

RESULTS OF PREPAREDNESS 

THIS brief analysis of the programmes for military 
preparedness which have been spread before the 
American people proves them to be wholly indefi- 
nite, purely theoretical, endlessly extravagant, and abso- 
lutely — in fact, ridiculously — inadequate. 

But there must be no misunderstanding of the full 
significance and certain results of getting down to busi- 
ness on the military programme. If we give ourselves 
whole-heartedly to it, we must bid farewell forever to 
those American ideals of peaceful industry, of genuine 
education, of real democracy, and of international rela- 
tions dominated by law and justice. The military powers 
of the Old World and of all history have shown us but 
too plainly by precept and example the necessary conse- 
quences to industry, education, democracy, and interna- 
tional morality, of a whole-souled devotion to a consist- 
ently " adequate " military programme. 

P.oth reason and recent experience have burned in 
upon us the lesson that adequate preparedness includes 
the preparation of plans for making war. The " cam- 
paign " must necessarily be mapped out beforehand, and 
its strategy and tactics decided upon in advance. The 
German ofiicers' clubs, with their debates on " the best 
plan " and prizes for its author; with their incessant con- 
struction and criticism of " projects of attack and de- 
fense," and their habitual and enthusiastic toast to " The 
Day " when these projects might be tested, have taught 
this lesson beyond the shadow of a doubt. The " agree- 
ments " and " arrangements " between Great P.ritain and 
France have taught this same lesson, with the further 

254 



RESULTS OF PREPAREDNESS 255 

one of the futility of anything short of absolute ade- 
quacy in military preparedness. Even Germany, with its 
phenomenal, apparent military success, is learning anew 
that Kant's dictum, " we cannot grasp the absolute by 
the wool," is true in the military and material world as 
well as in the intellectual. 

Many events have proven the truth of reason's pro- 
phecy that on the occasion of every international dis- 
pute the country " prepared " with big armaments rat- 
tles the sabre in its sheath, or draws the sword from its 
scabbard, in its effort to back up its diplomacy and incline 
" justice " to its side. In this era when the whole world 
is a neighborhood, such preparedness on the part of one 
nation is emulated by the others who regard the iron fist 
as a necessary concomitant of their own diplomacy. 

But " preparedness " instils the poison of militarism 
not only into international relations ; it militarizes na- 
tional and individual life and character as well. " The 
Earth rests not more securely on the shoulders of Atlas 
than Germany on her Army and Navy " : so said one of 
the prime supporters of military preparedness, the Crown 
Prince of Prussia. " After all," said the editor of a great 
London journal, " the British Empire is built up by good 
fighting by its Army and Navy. The spirit of war is 
native to the British race. . . . Only by militarism can 
we guard against the abuses of militarism." Such are 
the natural fruits of military preparedness ; and their 
counterparts are already pressing upon public attention 
in our own Republic. 

Military preparedness, which, to be adequate, must 
necessarily be based on despotism in the army, has caused 
despotism to be retained in the monarchies of Conti- 
nental Europe, and to be revived in many open and in- 
sidious ways in its Republics. In practice, the rights of 
freemen have been ruthlessly disregarded in Germany 
and in Great Britain alike, under the stress of providing 
a greater preparedness; in theory, the Germans insist 



256 PREPAREDNESS 

that efficiency in military preparedness is possible only 
when power is strictly concentrated, and the English have 
grown doubtful as to the possibility of its achievement in 
a democracy. In Germany, a member of the Reichstag 
voted against the military budget; his fellow members 
shouted to him, " We won't permit the supreme military 
authorities to be criticised " ; and the government 
promptly ordered him to t|:ie trenches. In England, an 
unprecedented campaign for enlistment has come to the 
verge of conscription ; the state-church has been ordered 
to "preach more patriotic sermons"; and the workmen 
in fuel and munitions plants have been made to feel that 
they are the wards of the government. 

One of the prime characteristics of the progress of civi- 
lization is a growing respect for law and for the sanctity 
of human life ; and yet our Republic is summoned to pre- 
pare to engage in international anarchy and in the whole- 
sale destruction of human life. One of our leading pre- 
pareders, in a public debate in Boston, pictured Uncle 
Sam with a chip on each shoulder (the Monroe Doctrine 
and Mongolian Exclusion), and with both arms (the 
Army and Navy) in a sling. To such an ideal of our 
Republic does the demand for " preparedness " logically 
lead. Shall it be permitted to eclipse the traditional ideal 
of Uncle Sam with international rights on one shoulder 
and international duties on the other, with one hand bear- 
ing the torch of liberty, education and industry enlight- 
ening the world, and the other pressing upon the nations 
the scales of international justice? 



X 

THE AMERICAN PROGRAMME 

THE American people have not yet become a blood- 
thirsty, a militaristic nation. They will assuredly 
reject with scorn and contempt the irrational, an- 
archistic, inadequate, uncivilized, unchristian, and un- 
American programme of the militarists, and accept gladly 
and eagerly the rational, legal, adequate, civilized, Chris- 
tian and American programme of the Madisons, Hamil- 
tons and Washingtons of our time. We have, once be- 
fore in our history, faced the same great question and 
answered it aright. 

A. THE GREAT EXPERIMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION 

In the gloomy " critical period " of our history, from 
1783 to 1789, the burning question arose: Shall each of 
the Thirteen States build up its armaments on land and 
sea, to the utmost of its power, and by means of them 
defend its soil from invasion by the other, jealous, rival, 
hostile States? Or, shall the great experiment of the 
Constitution be tried, by means of which inter-State dis- 
putes may be settled by judicial process, and the arma- 
ments of each State be reduced to a minimum? 

The answer was not so simple and easy and matter-of- 
course as it appears today after a century and a quarter 
of successful operation on the part of the Constitution. 
Undoubtedly, as the Founders themselves acknowledged, 
the Constitution was " wrung from the grinding necessi- 
ties of a reluctant people." There were many men then, 
in the various States, as there are in the various nations 
today, who declared that they would not entrust the 
safety of their States and homes to a "mere scrap of 

857 



258 PREPAREDNESS 

paper " ; and insisted that the " good old plan " of ade- 
quate armaments and preparedness should be adhered to, 
and the new-fangled follies of the mollycoddle pacifists 
and poltroon legalists should be rejected. Fortunately 
for America and the world, the Founders of the Republic 
triumphed, and an end was put forever within the States 
of the Union to that policy of adequate armaments and 
preparedness which would inevitably, if allowed to con- 
tinue, have made of the Constitution a mere scrap of 
paper, just as the adequate armaments and preparedness 
of today have made mere scraps of paper of treaties be- 
tween the nations. 

Of course, it is wholly undesirable and impossible for 
the world today to establish a national Union such as 
was established in 1789 between the States. The day for 
a world-empire, or even a wortd-republic, has probably 
passed away forever. But it is possible, practicable and 
mandatory for the world to adopt unreservedly and ad- 
here to unwaveringly the rational, legal, adequate, civi- 
lized. Christian and American programme which it en- 
tered upon at the two Hague Conferences. 

B. THE PARTS OF THE PROGRAMME 

This programme is not vaguely indefinite and purely 
theoretical, as is that of the militarist. On the contrary, 
every part of it is clear-cut and every part of it has been 
put into successful operation. Thus, back of it is the 
convincing force of sound reason, and the overwhelming 
proof of successful practice. Let us examine it briefly, 
and at the same time consider the relation of adequate 
armaments and preparedness to the programme as a 
whole and to each of its parts. 

Its parts are four in number, namely, the limitation of 
armaments, the exclusive use of mediation and good 
offices, of international commissions of inquiry, and of 
international arbitration. 



THE AMERICAN PROGRAMME 259 

I. THE LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS 

^America's Experience 

The limitation of armaments has been tried for a cen- 
tury with pre-eminent success between the United States 
and the British Empire, and for a quarter-century be- 
tween Chile and Argentina. Its adoption in some form, 
— preferably the conversion of all national armaments 
into an international police force, — is absolutely essential 
to preventing the other parts of the programme from 
being torn into scraps of paper. The whole world of 
civilization, within both the belligerent and the neutral 
nations as well, is looking forward to the time when, after 
the demolition of adequate armaments in the present 
Great War, an end shall be put forever to the persistent 
and frightful competition between the nations in the 
building up of adequate armaments, of preparedness, on 
land and sea. And even the terrible evils of this frightful 
war are borne with some equanimity in the prime hope 
of humanity that God may bring out of these evils the 
total destruction of the nations' means of mutual destruc- 
tion. 

America's Opportunity; The Obstacle of Preparedness 

Here, then, will be the first great opportunity of 
America to lead the world; but this opportunity will 
belong only to an America with clean hands and pure 
heart. In that future conference of the nations which is 
to put an end forever to competition in the building up 
of armaments, what possible influence for good can the 
American delegates exert if their country should have 
itself adopted in earnest the military programme? 
Would not the other delegates say, with entire justice and 
finality : " While we were destroying each other's arma- 
ments, you seized the opportunity of building up your 
own ; go to, we will go and do likewise " ? So far from 
influencing a world conference to limit armaments, the 



260 PREPAREDNESS 

United States would give such an impulse to competition 
in the building up of armaments as the world has never 
known before ! And it would thus become its own chief 
opponent in leading the world to adopt the rest of the 
truly American programme. It would be as if Virginia, 
the home of Madison and Washington, or New York, 
the home of Hamilton, had said to the other States : 
" Let us adopt a judicial means of settling all disputes 
between us " ; and had, at the same time, persisted in 
building up armaments on land and sea. 

At the first Hague Conference in 1899, Russia earnestly 
advocated the limitation of armaments ; but at the second 
Conference in 1907, after Russia's war with Japan had 
impelled it to undertake an enormous increase in its arma- 
ments, it refused not only to advocate limitation of arma- 
ments but even to place the subject upon the programme 
for discussion. 

It will take the United States years, according to our 
military and naval experts, to reach even the standard 
of preparedness set by this present war. Meanwhile, im- 
mediately on the close of the war, the third Hague Con- 
ference must be held, and the delegation from the United 
States should be prepared and enabled, by their country's 
attitude on armaments, to accomplish that limitation of 
armaments which was defeated at the first two confer- 
ences by a reliance upon " adequate armaments," and 
which a bleeding and panting world will demand with a 
thousand-fold more imperiousness after the Armageddon 
that has followed the " preparedness " of recent years. 

2. MEDIATION 

America's Experience 

Mediation and good offices were placed in the pro- 
gramme by the Hague Conferences. They have been 
tried by the United States scores of times, both before 
and since the Conferences, and with conspicuous success. 
On many occasions, Latin-American wars have been pre- 



THE AMERICAN PROGRAMME 261 

vented or ended by American mediation. Through the 
good offices of the United States, the Russo-Japanese 
War, — up to that time the most terrible of modem wars, 
— was brought to an end. 

This means of preventing war is obviously capable of 
far greater use and success ; and it was not only endorsed 
by the Hague Conferences as useful and desirable, but 
it was unanimously declared not to be an " unfriendly " 
act on the part of the mediator either before or after the 
outbreak of hostilities. 

Its Rejection in the Present War; the Obstacle of Pre- 
paredness 

Why has it not been successful in preventing or ending 
the present Great War ? Because of adequate armaments. 
It was pressed repeatedly before the war began, but was 
rejected because of the belief on the part of the respective 
disputants that they could gain more by means of their 
adequate armaments. Our own President was prompt 
and urgent in the extension of good offices and mediation 
on the part of the United States. His offer was rejected. 
Why? Because of adequate armaments. Our country 
and humanity are watchfully and hopefully waiting for a 
repetition of that offer. When will the opportunity to 
offer them again and with success occur? When, only 
when, the adequate armaments of one side or the other 
shall have been smashed into smithereens. 

The unanswerable logic of this proposition is fortified 
by the mediation at Portsmouth, when it was found pos- 
sible to mediate only after the Russian and Japanese 
armaments had been greatly reduced and when the finan- 
cial resources of the belligerents prevented them from 
speedily renewing those armaments. As a man must 
sow what he reaps, a country will assuredly get what it 
prepares for, whether it be a peaceful adjustment of dis- 
putes or war. 

A conference of the neutral nations to offer continu- 



262 PREPAREDNESS 

ous mediation in the present war has been repeatedly 
urged in and upon the United States, and there is no 
doubt that it could be summoned and could act with suc- 
cess were it not for " adequate " armaments, — armaments 
adequate, so their respective possessors believe, to secure 
" justice " by means of them. Indeed, we have the testi- 
mony of the British Secretary of State for Foreign Af- 
fairs that even a conference of the belligerent nations 
themselves could have prevented this war. He places 
the blame, of course, upon Germany for not agreeing to 
this conference; but the impartial observer sees behind 
Germany's refusal the spectre of preparedness on both 
sides. Sir Edward Grey's words, spoken in Parliament 
nearly nine months after the war began, were as follows : 
" The expenditure of hundreds of millions of money and 
the loss of millions of lives might have been avoided by 
a conference of the European powers held in London or 
at The Hague, or wherever and in whatever form Ger- 
many would have consented to hold it. It would have been 
far easier to have settled the dispute between Austria- 
Hungary and Servia, which Germany made the occasion 
of the war, than it was to get successfully through the 
Balkan crisis of two years ago." 

Precisely so. The Serbian, or Balkan, or Moroccan, 
or almost any other " incident," is liable to be made the 
occasion of war, when athwart such incidents lies the 
shadow of " preparedness." 

3. COMMISSIONS OF INQUIRY 

Their Success 

International Commissions of Inquiry were also en- 
dorsed by the Hague Conferences, and they too have 
been put into successful practice. Founded upon the 
principle of ordinary common sense that we should in- 
vestigate before we fight, it has been found that, in nine 
cases out of ten, if we investigate we will not fight at all. 
Among the applications of this rational means of settling 



THE AMERICAN PROGRAMME 263 

international disputes, may be mentioned the famous in- 
cident of the Dogger Bank. On this occasion, Great 
Britain, Japan's ally and Russia's suspicious rival, was 
prevented from going into the Russo-Japanese war, by 
an impartial, international investigation of an occurrence 
which had destroyed British lives and touched closely 
British honor. 

Their Rejection in the Present War; the Obstacle of Pre- 
paredness 

How eminently suitable would have been the resort to 
an international commission of inquiry for the prevention 
of the present war. This war, — it has almost been for- 
gotten, — was precipitated by the assassination of an Aus- 
trian archduke and duchess. Austria accused the Serbian 
government of complicity in the crime. Here was a 
question of fact, which an impartial, international com- 
mission of inquiry could have readily sifted and reported 
upon to the satisfaction of the world's public opinion. 
This rational course was repeatedly urged before the 
war began. Why was it not resorted to? Because of 
" adequate armaments." Because Austria and her allies, 
and Serbia and her allies, believed that they had invinci- 
ble or irresistible armaments, adequate to secure "jus- 
tice " for their respective contentions. 

4. ARBITRATION 

Its Success 

International arbitration is another pre-eminently 
American and rational means of settling disputes between 
nations, and it is one which has been applied with success 
many scores of times. One of the proudest pages in Amer- 
ican history is that which records the success of scores of 
arbitrations of international disputes to which the United 
States has been a party. The Founder of Pennsylvania 
advocated two centuries ago the creation of an interna- 
tional court of arbitration, whose counterpart was estab- 



£64« PREPAREDNESS 

lished by the first Hague Conference, largely under 
American initiative and support. The Jay Treaty of 1794 
provided for the arbitrations which ushered in the modem 
history of arbitration ; and on the roll of such arbitrations, 
that at Geneva, which settled the Anglo-American dispute 
over the Alabama claims, stands out conspicuous because 
of the magnitude of the claims, the bitterness of feeling 
and the national honor and vital interests involved in the 
case. 

More than two hundred disputes between sundry na- 
tions had been settled by arbitration before the first 
Hague Conference assembled. At that Conference a re- 
sort to arbitration was unanimously approved ; and at 
that Conference the very Prime Minister of England who 
had condemned and derided arbitration as " a quack nos- 
trum of our time," just a quarter-century before, in- 
structed the British delegates to move the adoption of a 
court of arbitration and a regular code of arbitral pro- 
cedure. 

The International Court 

This court, — the " Permanent Court of Arbitration," 
and the first truly international court in history, — was 
unanimously agreed upon by the delegates and ratified 
by their governments. Four years later, on the initiative 
of the government of the United States, it was assigned 
its first case. A dozen years have passed since then, — 
only a tiny span in history, — and yet. already that court 
has settled fifteen disputes between the nations. Some 
of these disputes have involved grave issues of national 
honor and vital interests; and before this greatest of 
earthly tribunals have bowed not only the " little fellows " 
in the family of nations, like Venezuela and Belgium, but 
every one of the eight '' great powers," with the single ex- 
ception of Austria-Hungary. The United States repeat- 
edly. Great Britain, Japan, Russia, Italy, France, Ger- 
many, — each and all of them have recognized the juris- 



THE AMERICAN PROGRAMME 265 

diction of the court and yielded to its decision. One of 
these disputes was between the bitter enemies of a gen- 
eration, Germany and France ; and yet this dispute, Hke 
all the others, was settled by the court, and settled so 
thoroughly that the world has well-nigh forgotten that 
they ever existed. In fact, of all the two hundred and 
forty-odd cases of arbitration in history, there has not 
been a single one in which the award of the arbitral 
tribunal was resisted ! Thus potent is the rule of reason 
and an enlightened public opinion. 

Its Rejection in the Present War; the Obstacle of Pre- 
paredness 

Now why is it that arbitration did not prevent the pres- 
ent war? Because it did not do so, the work of the 
Hague Conferences has been condemned and derided, and 
their conventions called " mere scraps of paper." But 
here again, as in the case of the other measures adopted 
at The Hague, the existence of " adequate armaments " 
has been responsible for its rejection. Of course it could 
not be successful in preventing or ending the war, unless 
it were resorted to ; and a resort to it, though repeatedly 
urged, was rejected by the belligerents concerned because 
of Germany's and of Russia's armies and of Britain's 
fleet. 

Experience as well as reason proves conclusively that 
" adequate armaments " are inevitably and insuperably 
opposed to arbitration. At the first Hague Conference, 
when the Permanent Court of Arbitration was proposed, 
a German military delegate declared : " Germany will 
have none of arbitration. It has an army ready to fight 
at the drop of the hat, and by means of that it will settle 
its quarrels." A British naval delegate said practically 
the same thing : " Great Britain has a navy that rules the 
sea: by means of that it will secure justice. Arbitration 
is merely a device to enable the other fellow to get 
ready." 



266 PREPAREDNESS 

Fortunately, the military and naval delegates were 
brushed aside, in this matter, at The Hague ; the Per- 
manent Court of Arbitration was established ; and it has 
proved its efficacy, in preventing war and enforcing jus- 
tice, by the unanswerable logic of accomplished facts. 

The doors of the Temple of Justice at The Hague were 
open at the beginning of the present war. The famous 
Twenty-seventh Article of The Hague Convention for the 
Pacific Settlement of International Disputes had made it, 
not merely the right, but the duty of the governments, 
separately or together, to call the attention of the dis- 
putants to the fact that these doors stood hospitably open 
for the rational adjudication of the dispute between them. 
This duty was fulfilled by various governments, our own 
included. But the Temple of Janus still held the faith 
and worship of the leaders of the peoples, and that Tem- 
ple was filled with Dogs of War whose baying drowned 
the voice of reason. So it has always been, so it must 
ever be, until those Dogs of War are converted into the 
genuine watch-dogs of civilization. 

5. AN AMERICAN ARMY AND NAVY 

But, in the adoption of the true American programme, 
shall we have no army and navy, or keep them inadequate, 
inefficient, unprepared? No. Whatever we have, we 
want it to be adequate, efficient, prepared. But adequate 
for what? For the legitimate needs of a Twentieth 
Century Republic. For whatever police service may be 
required of them to enforce national law on land and to 
suppress pirates or other criminals within the three-mile 
limit of our shores ; for such magnificent sanitary and 
medical service as has been rendered in the Canal Zon^ 
and the Philippines ; for such splendid engineering work 
as has been done at Panama. These are the legitimate 
tasks of a Twentieth Century army and navy; and for 
these they should be as adequate, efficient, and prepared 
as possible. 



THE AMERICAN PROGRAMME 267 

One of the great advantages of an army and navy 
used for such purposes is, that with the advance of 
progress and civilization, the size of the army and navy 
decreases proportionately to population, and its expense 
decreases proportionately to wealth. 

But let us no longer load ourselves in times of peace 
with enormous and constantly increasing military burdens 
in order to prepare for the settlement of disputes between 
nations by means of war. National armies and navies 
are strictly national tools, and they should have no place 
nor function in international affairs. 



XI 

THE TWO DIVERGENT PATHS 

IS it possible that we are going to permit our own be- 
loved Republic to enter upon that foolish, fatal, 
bloody, brutal path of militarism which has led the 
nations of today into the abyss, — which inevitably has 
led and must lead always to the abyss ? We are standing 
today at the parting of the ways. Which shall we take? 
The irrational, anarchistic, inadequate, uncivilized, un- 
christian, un-American path of so-called adequate arma- 
ments? Or the rational, legal, adequate, civilized, Chris- 
tian, and American path of adequate justice? 

The United States has today an opportunity unpar- 
alleled in its history, — in all history, — of answerng this 
question aright, and of leading the world along the better 
way. 

These, then, are the two paths that stretch fatefully be- 
fore our country and the world today. Which shall we 
take, and lead the world to take ? Let us make no mistake 
about it : We cannot take them both. We cannot gather 
grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles. If we sow the 
wind, we must reap the whirlwind ; if we prepare for 
war, we cannot preserve the peace. No nation can serve 
both the God of Battle and the Prince of Peace. Rea- 
son and experience prove conclusively that the military 
programme, if adopted in earnest, makes impossible the 
desire to adopt, as well as the adoption of, the American 
programme. And a military programme that is not 
adopted in earnest is mere foolishness and a criminal 
waste of money, brains and men. 

To lead the world along the American path is diffi- 
cult? Yes; so have been all of the world's great reforms. 

268 



THE TWO DIVERGENT PATHS 269 

But it is not impossible; and there are considerations 
which make it most promising. If our own great Repub- 
lic keeps the faith, and reassures the world both by pre- 
cept and example that it has definitely turned its face 
away from militarism and towards judicial settlement of 
international, as of State and individual disputes, then 
indeed it will be in a position, not only to play a useful 
role in shortening the present war and influencing the 
terms of peace, but also in persuading the world to adopt 
the American programme. A generation of groaning 
under the terrible, increasing and apparently unending 
burden of competitive armaments ; an unknown period of 
suffering and dying in the throes of the present war ; and 
the prospect of a long future burdened to the earth by 
the economic, physical and moral losses of this war, will 
assuredly incline the nations to the better way. The voice 
of democracy at home and of international law and equity 
abroad must infallibly and invincibly be heard. Let 
America prepare now and persist then in giving expres- 
sion to that voice, which is its natural, its historic, and its 
destined role. Friendships, not battleships; statesmen, 
not men-of-war, must and can perform this great service 
to ourselves and to all mankind. 

" Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears. 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! " 

The triumph of the American programme will be diffi- 
cult of achievement ? Yes. But consider the alternative. 
Even the Prussianization of our Republic will not suffice 
to achieve victory over a first-class power in Twentieth 
Century war. Shall our America be made a Twentieth 
Century Sparta? No! Life under such circumstances 
would no longer be dear to any true American. Give us 
liberty, — freedom from tyranny of any militarism, — or 
for ourselves and our Republic, give us death! 



XII 

THE PRESENT CRISIS 

THESE, then, are the two paths that have opened 
up before us. Which shall we choose? In this 
great national and international crisis, let us re- 
call and act rightly upon those appealing and prophetic 
words which one of our own great poets uttered in an- 
other crisis of the history of our country and of the 
world : 

" Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side. 
Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our 
land? 



" Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind 

their time? 
Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth 

Rock sublime? 



" New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient good 

uncouth ; 
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of 

Truth ; 
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must Pilgrims 

be. 
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate 

winter sea, 
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's bloo^-rUsted key." 

If we can steadfastly sustain our courage beneath the 
shadow of the " f rightfulness " of the present war ; if 
we can follow steadfastly that vision of Peace through 
Justice which we have seen revealed so clearly, though 
a century apart, in Philadelphia and at The Hague ; then 

270 



THE PRESENT CRISIS 271 

only can we look forward with hopeful assurance to 
the realization of that ideal of our Republic which Presi- 
dent Wilson has recently portrayed in the following noble 
words : " It is probably a fortunate circumstance, there- 
fore, that America has been cried awake by these voices 
of the disturbed and reddened night, when fire sweeps 
sullenly from continent to continent; and it may be that 
in this red flame of light there will rise again that ideal 
figure of America, holding up her hand of hope and 
guidance to the people of the world, saying: I stand 
ready to counsel and to help ; I stand ready to assert, 
whenever the flame is quieted, those infinite principles 
of rectitude and peace, which alone can bring happiness 
and liberty to mankind." 



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